CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami women’s tennis team dropped a 4-3 decision Saturday afternoon to No. 18 Auburn in the NCAA Team Championship Round of 32.
Ranked No. 15 and seeded No. 14, Miami (16-8, 9-4 ACC) narrowly dropped the doubles point, but nearly mounted a comeback at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center. The effort, however, fell two games short, as the Tigers advanced to the Round of 16 after a marathon affair that took over three-and-a-half hours to complete.
“Listen, we knew it was going to be a tough match. Obviously, the doubles point was a pretty big disappointment, being up big and then just, I think, in three games, [it felt like] we might’ve won one point,” Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews said. “It’s what we were talking about all season, you don’t play like that when you’re up. Just a lot of kind of little things trickling in and out throughout the year, obviously, we also saw today. If you’re going to make a run, you’ve got to make changes and we didn’t make changes. So, a long match, a battle [on our] home court [in the] heat—we come out, we don’t win the match, it’s pretty disappointing.”
The first two doubles matches ended just minutes apart, with each side taking one. First, Miami’s No. 32-ranked pair of redshirt sophomore Alexa Noel and junior Isabella Pfennig defeated DJ Bennett and Kaitlyn Carnicella, 6-1.
Auburn (20-8, 8-5 SEC) leveled the doubles tally behind a 6-2 victory from No. 31 Carolyn Ansari and Ariana Arsenault over fifth-year senior Daevenia Achong and fourth-year junior Maya Tahan, together ranked No. 51.
Another 35 minutes later, after 70 total to minutes of doubles action, the Tigers narrowly claimed the doubles point. Adeline Flach and Angella Okutoyi rallied from 5-2 and 6-5 deficits, including fighting off a match point, to force a tiebreaker. Once there, they stormed back from 3-0 and 4-1 holes to defeat junior Audrey Boch-Collins and freshman Mia Mack, 7-6 (7-5), and give Auburn the 1-0 advantage.
Auburn took the first singles match to double its edge, as Bennett beat No. 88 Pfennig, 6-2, 6-1, but Miami answered just 10 minutes later with a win from its lone player without any eligibility remaining.
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