Tennis team ends its season in first round of Big 12 tournament
- Apr. 26, 2012
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Spring of 2012 ended with the Jayhawks’ tenth loss to a conference opponent, this time coming in College Station, Tex. at the Big 12 Championships. Kansas lost to No. 47-ranked and seventh-seed Oklahoma, 4-0, finished the dual-play portion of the season 9-13 overall, and 0-9 in regular season Big 12 play.
“There’s always pressure when you’re going up against Big 12 teams,” coach Amy Hall-Holt said. “It’s one of the toughest conferences. Yes, we want to win and we want to do well.”
The Jayhawks were eliminated in the first round of the conference tournament for the fourth-straight year. Two of the doubles teams led matches early on, but the No. 89-ranked duo of Monica Pezzotti and Dylan Windom couldn’t hold on at the No. 1 spot after the Sooners took the No. 2 match.
Mia Lancaster and Abbi Melrose of Oklahoma defeated Kansas’ Paulina Los and Maria Belen Ludueña, 8-2, at No. 2 doubles, while Pezzotti and Windom lost to No. 35-ranked Marie-Pier Huet and Whitney Ritchie, 8-5. The No. 3 match was discontinued when the Sooners clinched the doubles point.
Oklahoma then reeled off three singles victories in straight sets, at the No. 1, 3 and 6 positions. Ritchie defeated Pezzotti, 6-1, 6-1, Lancaster defeated Ludueña, 6-3, 6-4, and Victoria Khanevskaya lost to the Sooners’ Whitney Wofford, 6-1, 6-2. The Jayhawks held second-set leads in the three unfinished singles matches before Oklahoma clinched the win.
Kansas played the entire spring portion of the season without their No. 1 player, senior veteran Ekaterina Morozova, but members of the team don’t use that as an excuse for their Big 12 woes.
“Like our strength and condition coach said, ‘adapt and overcome,’” Windom said. “Adapt to new things and try to overcome them. Don’t make excuses for anything.”
The Jayhawks will not graduate any of their starting lineup before next season, a fact that at least keeps much of the team upbeat going into 2013.
“It’s exciting for us that we’re a young team because we have so much talent,” sophomore Claire Dreyer said. “Everyone is just excited to come back next year and keep going at it.”
The Sooners will face No. 12 ranked and second-seeded Baylor in the tournament quarterfinals on Friday at 3 p.m.
