This weekend the DePauw women's tennis team beat two nationally ranked programs on its way to a third place finish at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division III Team Indoor Championship at DePauw's Indoor Tennis Center.
The ITA Indoor Championship is an annually held tournament that invites nationally ranked teams from across the nation. The third place finish was impressive considering the Tigers were the lowest ranked team in their bracket of eight.
In the Tigers' first match of the tournament on Friday, the team faced University of Chicago, who previously beat DePauw 1-8 in the first match of the season. This time, however, they Tigers were out for revenge and got it by beating Chicago with a score of 5-4.
Three of the victories came by way of singles matches from freshman Maggie MacPhail, senior Katie Regan and freshman Kaitlin Pickrel. The duos of sophomore Meg Crowley and freshman Claire Marshall and sophomore Caroline Emhardt and Pickrel were the winners in the doubles matches.
Crowley commented on the victory and what it meant for the team.
"It felt really, really good beating them," Crowley said. "First off because we'd already lost to them and secondly because they were the top ranked team in our bracket and we were the bottom ranked team so it was a huge upset when we won."
Crowley also said the team had a different mental approach going into this match than they did the first time around.
"I think this time we didn't put as much pressure on ourselves and felt like we had nothing to lose," Crowley said. "So we decided to go out there and have fun, but give it our all at the same time, and it actually ended up working out really for us."
On Saturday, in the team's second match, the Tigers found themselves up against 7th ranked Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA) and suffered a loss by a score of 2-7. The Washington and Lee women eventually went on to win the tournament in a nail-biting match against Carnegie, winning in the last set 5-4.
In the Tigers' final match of the tournament on Sunday, they finished the weekend strong by beating Washington University (St. Louis) with a score of 7-2. The victory marked the team's second win of the weekend over a higher nationally ranked team.
"Both of the wins we got this weekend were a great confidence booster for the team," Crowley said. "They showed us that if we work hard enough we could beat any team, which is a good thought to have while trying to place ourselves in the NCAC tournament. However, we're still taking our season one game at a time and our next match is against Ferris State and that's what we're focusing on right now."
The Tiger's next match is Thursday at 4:30 p.m. against Ferris State University at the Indoor Track and Tennis Center.