ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy women's tennis team (13-1) extended its win streak to six-consecutive matches and recorded its 12th-straight home victory to open the 2022 spring dual season in a 4-3 decision over Temple (4-3) Friday afternoon at the Tose Family Tennis Center.
The 12-straight home wins now ranks as the second-longest such streak in program history, trailing only the 2013 Navy women's tennis team that won 15-consecutive home matches. Additionally, the home-win streak ranks as the longest such streak to open a season in program history. In the one-point decision over the Owls, the Midshipmen improved to 68-19 on the dual season in singles competition along with having a 36-5 mark in doubles matches.
Leading the charge for Navy against Temple on Friday was
Stella Ribaudo (So., Chicago, Ill.) who tallied a pair of wins on the afternoon, beginning with a doubles victory at the No. 3 match with her partner
Emily Tannenbaum (Fr., Commack, N.Y.), before securing a point at the No. 6 singles position in a three-set battle (6-4, 3-6, 6-1) over Temple's Sena Takebe.
"I thought the ladies did a great job of battling through some adversity today to get a hard-fought win," said head coach
Keith Puryear. "We kept impressing upon them that it's not about what our record is, but instead continuing to trust the process – the things that we're working on individually and as a team. We are looking forward to some challenging matches in Florida, as well as some well earned rest and relaxation for the ladies before embarking on our Patriot League schedule."
With the win over Temple, Puryear now has 689 victories in his career as a head coach, just 11 wins shy of eclipsing the 700-victory mark.
In doubles competition, Navy opened play by falling behind after a loss at the No. 2 position as
Katreina Corpuz (Sr., Ewa Beach, Hawai'i) and
Meghana Komarraju (Sr., Vienna, Va.) fell to the Owls' Stefaniya Surikova and Jamie Wei (6-2).
However, following the loss at the No. 2 spot, the Mids quickly secured the doubles point to take a 1-0 lead as
Kacey Moore (Sr., Wellington, Fla.) and
Jillian Taggart (Jr., Fair Oaks, Calif.) earned victory at the No. 1 position over Takebe and Evie Wei (6-4) at the same moment as Ribaudo and Tannenbaum tallied the aforementioned victory at the No. 3 position.
In singles play, Komarraju, the reigning Patriot League Women's Tennis Player of the Week, recorded a straight-set win over Yining Tian in the No. 4 match (6-4, 7-5), before Taggart fell to Jamie Wei in the No. 1 singles competition (6-3, 6-4) to bring the match score to 2-1 in favor of the Mids.
With her victory at the No. 4 position, Komarraju has now won nine-consecutive singles matches, the longest-active streak on the team.
Ribaudo brought Navy to within a point of match victory with the previously mentioned three-set win over Takebe at the No. 6 spot, followed moments later by Corpuz securing the match-clinching point at the No. 5 position with a victory over Evie Wei (7-6, 7-5) in straight sets.
With match victory assured for the Mids, Temple responded with back-to-back wins at the No. 3 and No. 4 positions, respectively, to cap off the 4-3 decision in favor of Navy.
Vineetha Mummadi downed Moore in a three-set competition (6-4, 2-6, 6-0) before Veronika Kulhava defeated Tannenbaum in an additional three-set match (2-6, 6-3, 7-5).
UP NEXT
Following its win over the Owls Friday, Navy is slated to return to action Tuesday as it begins a four-match spring break schedule in Orlando. The Midshipmen will take on Millsaps and Harvard on Tuesday before squaring off against Bradley and Merrimack on Wednesday.
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