Score: No. 1 Keiser Seahawks 3, Division II, No. 2 Nova Southeastern Sharks 4
Records: Keiser (4-2), Nova Southeastern (5-0)
Venue: NSU Tennis Center
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
No. 1 Keiser women's tennis fell short in their match against the defending Division II National Champions, No. 2 Nova Southeastern, on Tuesday afternoon. The Seahawks fell behind after a close doubles point, dropping matches on courts one and two. In singles, Keiser got a point back on court three, but the Sharks would take the match with wins on courts two, five, and six.
- The most successful team through this point in the year, Liza Velykorodna and Vanja Vidanovic, showed little struggle on court three, picking up a 6-2 win over Noemie Dadoun and Julia Moraes
- Court one went to Nova with Violet Apisah and Patricia Apisah falling to Kristyna Hranacova and Ita Habekovic 7-5
- The point would come down to court two, where the Sharks would break back at 5-3 to force a tiebreak. Sofia Shing and Isabella Ciancaglini would get another break at 5-5 before finishing the tiebreak with a 7-5 win and clinching the doubles point
- No. 6 Eloise de Mooij would get Keiser on the board in singles with a 6-2, 6-2 win on court three
- Nearly an hour later, Nova would get three points in succession on courts two, five, and six
- With the match clinched, the remaining two courts would play a super tiebreak third
- Both Velykorodna and V. Apisah would win their matches in the third to make it 4-3
When asked about today's result, Head Coach
Daniel Finn had this to say: "Just not good enough from us today. Can't expect to fight from behind and come out on top against a quality team. The doubles point cost us today. Period. We had way too many opportunities to close the point out and didn't do it. It affected the score but more importantly the momentum, and we couldn't recover. Nova has a good team, but us losing the doubles point today in the manner we did just isn't acceptable. We have to be better moving forward and slam the door on somebody when given the opportunity. Today we got tentative during some big moments and didn't stay aggressive enough. If you're going to win a match against the good team, you have to play aggressive and confident tennis, and we didn't do that today. The bottom line is that we weren't prepared for the match today. Credit to Nova, they certainly played a lot better today than they did when we saw them in our exhibition, but the tennis we put out there today wasn't going to cut it. We will all take ownership and will get back to work and make sure we don't let it happen next time out."
Keiser will be back closer to home on Thursday, February 20, with a match against their crosstown opponents, Palm Beach Atlantic. First serve from the Mitch Gornto Tennis Center is set for 2:00 p.m.
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