NCAA Hopes Remain Alive

The Harvard women’s tennis team entered its season finale ranked 45th nationally and looking to add a final win against No. 56 Dartmouth (16-6, 3-4 Ivy) to its résumé as it makes its case for one of the 33 at-large bids to the NCAA tournament. The Crimson (14-7, 6-1) hopes to join Princeton (20-5, 7-0), which secured one of the 31 conference champion bids by going undefeated in Ivy play, in representing the Ivy League at the annual tournament next month.

Playing in the Big Green’s Boss Tennis Center yesterday, Harvard took care of business in dramatic fashion, defeating Dartmouth, 4-3.

“I’m so proud of our team, the way they fought today and hung in there the whole match,” Crimson coach Traci Green said.

Harvard opened the match with momentum by clinching the doubles point with 8-5 and 8-2 victories at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

“Our No. 1 doubles team of [junior captain] Samantha Rosekrans and [sophomore] Holly Cao really has been getting better and better the last four matches,” Green said. “They have been stepping up…[Freshmen] Hideko Tachibana and Kristin Norton at No. 2 have had so much energy out there and really led the way.”

In singles play, 73rd-ranked Cao defeated the Big Green’s 118th-ranked Molly Scott to give the Crimson its second point of the afternoon. The sophomore picked up her 15th win of the season while handing Scott only her third loss at No. 1.

“I played pretty well,” Cao said. “My back was bothering me a little bit. I’m glad that I finished the matched quickly and came away with the win. I just played my game and kept being aggressive. I kept the points short and hit a lot of winners, and that worked.”

Rosekrans had her eight-match win streak snapped by Jesse Adler. With the 6-2, 6-2 loss, Rosekrans moved to 13-7 on the season at No. 4 and gave Dartmouth its first point.

Tachibana concluded her rookie season with a convincing 6-3, 6-0 victory to put Harvard a point away from its second consecutive win over the Big Green. Tachibana improved to 14-6 on the No. 2 court this season.

“I was really ready to go,” Tachibana said. “This was one of the best matches I’ve had all season. It felt really good to end on that.”

Freshman Alexandra Lehman lost a hard-fought match at No. 6 to Georgiana Smyser. After dropping the first set 6-3, Lehman stormed back to win the second set by the same score. After taking a 3-2 lead in the third set, she lost the next four games to lose the set 6-3, bringing Dartmouth within a point of the Crimson, 3-2.

With only two matches to play, Norton had all eyes on her in the most contentious match of the afternoon. Playing No. 3, Norton pulled out a slight first set victory, 7-5.

In the second set, Norton quickly fell 5-1 to her opponent, Mary Beth Winingham. Unwilling to give up the set, Norton rebounded to win the next five games and take the lead, 6-5. After Winingham won a game, the set moved into a back-and-forth tiebreak that Norton eventually won 9-7.

The win gave Norton a 14-6 record at No. 3 this season and clinched the match for Harvard.

“It felt amazing,” Norton said. “It just felt really good to clinch it. I knew that I had to pull [the match] out and I’m really happy that I did.”

Finally, at No. 5, junior Agnes Sibilski lost in three sets to Carley Markovitz, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.

Having completed its regular season, the Crimson now must await the NCAA selection committee’s decision to see whether or not it will play in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006. The team bracket will be announced on May 4, while singles and doubles tournament selections will be released the following day.

“Everyone is excited we are ranked 45th,” Green said. “It’s the highest we’ve been in a few years. We knew the ball was in our court. We’d love to make NCAAs, but if we don’t, we’ll go back to the drawing board and come back stronger than ever.”

—Staff writer Eric L. Michel can be reached at emichel@fas.harvard.edu.