Florida Gators
Notre Dame (NCAA Round of 16)
Women's Tennis Advances to NCAA Quarterfinals
Thursday, May 17, 2001 | Women's Tennis
The fourth-seeded University of Florida women's tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship after today's hard-fought 4-1 victory over 13th-seeded and eighth-ranked Notre Dame at the Lincoln Tennis Center.
The Gators (23-2) face Washington (21-7) in the quarterfinals on Friday at 5 p.m. The 12th-seeded Huskies upset fifth-seeded Tennessee 4-3 in today's Round of 16 battle.
Former Gator great Jill (Hetherington) Hultquist is the assistant coach for Washington, but is at the NCAA Championships as the head coach since Patty McCain was unable to travel to Stone Mountain because she due to give birth next week to her first child.
Florida opened the match winning the doubles point and then survived a gritty Fighting Irish (25-5) crew in the singles.
"Notre Dame dictated a lot more out there and we reacted more. We let them back into just about every match," UF head coach Andy Brandi said. "With all due respect to Notre Dame, they hung in there, battled back and kept making tactical adjustments. We will have to dictate a lot more tomorrow if we want to be successful."
UF senior Whitney Laiho (Newport, RI), ranked No. 7 in the country provided the clinching dual match victory for the Gators, with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 upset over No. 3 Michelle Dasso at the no. 1 position. Laiho's victory was the 100th win of her career.
In the deciding third set, Laiho led 3-0 and then 5-1 and was serving for the match, but Dasso refused to go down without a fight, winning the next two games, before Laiho finally capitalized on her third match-point of the day. She was 1-for-9 in break points in the first set, but still managed to win it 7-5.
"Michelle (Dasso) played really, really well on every match- or set-point that I had. She didn't give me anything," Laiho said. "On my service games I think I choked a little, but on her service games, every time I had a break point she came up with a huge serve. We knew all the Notre Dame players were fighters and we were in for a tough match."
UF's other senior Stephanie Hazlett (Evansville, IN) won her match in a much different fashion. She opened her no. 4 singles match against Caylan Leslie winning the first set 6-3, but found herself in a 5-0 deficit in the second set before staging a dramatic 6-3, 7-5 victory. Hazlett, who has been struggling with a knee injury the entire season, fell to the ground clutching it during the first set.
"Andy (Brandi) talked with me before we left to come here and told me that this was my last chance to win another national championship and that I had to leave everything I had out on the court," Hazlett said. "I was going to do what ever I could, I did not want to be out there for three sets. I fell in the middle of the first set and the pain got progressively worse throughout the match. When I was down 5-0 I took a deep breath, regained my focus and told myself that I had to do whatever I was able to and not do too much. I was actually more relaxed when I was down 5-love than I have been the entire match. There is that much more strain on you mentally in a third set. Playing a third set would not have been beneficial to me physically."
Freshman Lindsay Dawaf (Olney, MD) was perhaps the lone Gator who dictated her match, as she posted a solid 6-3, 6-0 victory over Nina Vaughan at the No. 3 position.
Julia Scaringe (Marietta, GA) missed an opportunity to clinch her No. 5 singles match against Lindsey Green, as she was serving at 40-30 leading the third set 5-4. But Green staved off that match point and eventually broke Scaringe before taking the momentum en route to a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 win.
In doubles action, UF's No. 1 duo of Laiho and Lehnhoff rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the eight-game pro-set to win 8-6 and secure the doubles point for the Gators. Laiho and Lehnhoff extended their winning streak to 28-0 this season, while handing the UND's pair of Dasso and Varnum their first loss in the last 23 matches.
NCAA Women's Tennis Team Championships
Lincoln Tennis Center
Stone Mountain, Ga.
Round of 16
[1] Stanford d. Wake Forest, 4-0
[8] Arizona State d. [9] California, 4-2
[4] Florida d. [13] Notre Dame 4-1
[12] Washington d. [5] Tennessee, 4-3
[6] Vanderbilt d. UCLA, 4-1
[3] Duke d. [14] Texas, 4-2
[10] Southern California d. [7] Northwestern, 4-2
[2] Georgia d. [15] Baylor, 5-0
UF Individual Results only
Singles
No. 1 Whitney Laiho (7), UF d. Michelle Dasso (3), ND 7-5, 4-6, 6-3*
No. 2 Jessica Lehnhoff (13), UF vs. Becky Varnum (85), ND 3-6, 6-2, 3-2 abandoned
No. 3 Lindsay Dawaf (46), UF d. Nina Vaughan (91), ND 6-3, 6-0
No. 4 Stephanie Hazlett, UF d. Caylan Leslie, ND 6-3, 7-5
No. 5 Lindsey Green, ND d. Julia Scaringe (81), UF 6-3, 2-6, 7-5
No. 6 Annika Bengtsson, UF vs. Kim Guy, ND 3-6, 7-6 (4) abandoned
Doubles
No. 1 Laiho/ Lehnhoff (4), UF d. Dasso/ Varnum (7), ND 8-6
No. 2 Hazlett/ Scaringe, UF d. Cunha/ Guy, ND 8-2
No. 3 Bengtsson/ Dawaf, UF vs. Green/ Vaughan, ND 6-6 abandoned
*Clinching Match
END OF REPORT
