GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The No. 1 Florida Gators defeated the No. 6 Oklahoma State Cowgirls in a tight 4-2 match at home on Saturday, advancing its streak of consecutive home match wins to 162.
In doubles play, the Cowgirls clinched the doubles point with close matches in the No. 1 and 3 positions, with the Cowgirls' No. 5 Babic/Tur Mari defeating No. 18
Brooke Austin/
Kourtney Keegan and the Gators' No. 17
Josie Kuhlman/
Belinda Woolcock falling to Lushkova/Adamovic.
Despite losing the doubles point, Florida fought back in singles play to slow the Cowgirls' roll.
Belinda Woolcock and
Ingrid Neel earned two quick wins to give the Gators a 2-1 lead, until
Anna Danilina fell to Aliona Bolsova to tie up the match.
The final points came down to
Josie Kuhlman,
Brooke Austin and
Kourtney Keegan in the final three positions. Each went into three sets, with Austin finishing first to pull the Gators into the lead.
Josie Kuhlman finished right behind her after a taxing three-set match to clinch the win for the Gators.
This match is just one of two huge challenges for the Gators this weekend. The Gators will face the Stanford Cardinal – the 2016 National Champions – the team that defeated the Oklahoma State Cowgirls in the championship match.
Quoting Head Coach Roland Thornqvist:
"I'm proud of these guys, that was the most effort I've seen against a really good team – I mean that team was really good, really good."
On how hard each match was fought…
"I did a poor job with talking to this team about what the classic trap is here after coming back from a big tournament win. We do have a veteran team and I trust them completely, but our doubles was not good. We missed turns, we didn't poach, we didn't talk enough, and we still had an opportunity to win. It was almost as if we did just about all we could do wrong and we still had an opportunity to win the doubles point.
"It looked dire for a while in singles too, but this team has a knack of finding ways to win and today was certainly a great example of that. This Oklahoma State team is super talented, on every court they have real players, and it took all our mite to get through the finish line today."
No. 1 Florida Gators 4, No. 6 Oklahoma State Cowgirls 2
Feb. 18, 2017 | Gainesville, Fla.
Doubles (Order of finish: 1, 3)
1. #5 Vladica Babic/Carla Tur Mari (OSU) def. #18
Brooke Austin/
Kourtney Keegan (UF), 6-4
2. #22
Anna Danilina/
Ingrid Neel (UF) vs. Aliona Bolsova/Sofia Blanco (OSU), 6-6 DNF
3. Victoriya Lushkova/Katarina Adamovic def. #17
Josie Kuhlman/
Belinda Woolcock (UF), 7-6*
Singles (Order of finish: 1, 2, 3, 5, 4)
1. #40
Belinda Woolcock (UF) def. #10 Viktoriya Lushkova (OSU), 6-0, 3-0 ret.
2. #45
Ingrid Neel (UF) def. #56 Katarina Adamovic (OSU), 7-6, 6-4
3. Aliona Bolsova (OSU) def. #23
Anna Danilina (UF), 7-6, 6-4
4. #19
Josie Kuhlman (UF) def. #33 Vladica Babic (OSU), 2-6, 6-3, 6-4*
5.
Brooke Austin (UF) def. #85 Lena Ruppert (OSU), 7-5, 1-6, 6-4
6. #30
Kourtney Keegan (UF) vs. #77 Sophia Blanco (OSU), 4-6, 6-4, 3-2 DNF
Up next for the Gators:
No. 1 Florida will take on No. 5 Stanford at home on Sunday, Feb. 19 at noon.
