Sophomore Michala Hedelund Jensen leaps into the air to return a volley during a doubles match against the Kansas Jayhawks April 11 at CU-Boulder's South Campus tennis courts. (CU Independent file/Lauren Walter)
You can call it good timing. You can call it a sense of urgency. You can call it a thesaurus of things. But the fact of the matter is the CU women’s tennis team won when they needed to.
After dropping four straight, the Buffs clamped down Thursday in the first round of the Big 12 tournament and beat No. 8 Kansas State in Austin, Texas 4-1.
The Buffs won their doubles point by taking both doubles matches.
Freshman Erin Sanders and sophomore Ania Anuszkiewicz took the first match, and junior Abbie Probert and sophomore Michala Hedelund Jensen mirrored that effort by rallying to take the second match.
In singles play, senior Monica Milewski won her match in straight sets 6-0, 6-4. Then Sanders and Probert delivered the final one-two punch as they won their singles’ matches to seal the Wildcats’ fate.
After defeating this same Wildcat team exactly 20 days earlier, CU Head Coach Nicole Kenneally said she was all smiles with the Buffs’ performance.
“We knew it was going to be a really tight match against Kansas State, as we had a really close match with them during the regular season,” Kenneally said in a news release. “Both teams went in with a little different lineup, but I was really happy with the way we competed. We had some tough starts on a couple of matches, but we fought back hard. All in all, it was a great team match and a great team victory.”
With the win, the Buffs’ prize is a 9 a.m. (MDT) meeting Friday with the nation’s top ranked team and the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 Tournament: the Baylor Bears of Waco, Texas.
Call it what you want, but the fact of the matter is the Buffs need to win to move on.
Contact CU Independent Sports Editor Brent Wilson New at Brent.new@colorado.edu.
