Women end season 2nd in ACC
By Jon Drews / Student Publications
The women's tennis team ended the season tied with Clemson as co-regular season champions of the conference with 10-1 records.
The women's tennis team won their 12th straight match to wrap up the regular season, defeating the Virginia Cavaliers 5-2 in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend.
With the win, the Jackets clinched at least a share of the regular season ACC Championship for the third straight year.
Playing singles matches first, the Jackets took a 3-0 lead heading into doubles play.
Kristi Miller, Alison Silverio and Amanda McDowell easily won their singles matches in straight sets to help give the Jackets the early lead.
The Jackets, on the verge of winning match point, saw its chances for a clean sweep of all the matches fall away with Taryn Rudman's loss to Carolina Hammond.
Amanda Craddock took the fourth singles match and the match point with her win over Kristen McVitty, 5-7, 6-2, 6-3.
With the match already decided, Tech still won two of three in doubles play. Tech's No. 1 team, Craddock and Silverio took down their opponent 8-5. Miller and Striplin added to Tech's large margin of victory with a 8-4 win.
The day before saw Georgia Tech dominate Virginia Tech, easily winning 7-0 over the Hokies in Blacksburg.
The team, in both doubles and singles matches, did not drop a single match. The whole day was highlighted by Craddock's performance, dominating Virginia Tech's Ashley James and cruising to a straight sets victory. Craddock dropped only four games on the day and did not lose a single one in her singles match.
The closest the Hokies came to even stealing a set was in Tarryn Rudman's match, where Virginia Tech's Natalie Kretzer pushed Rudman in the second set of the match after Rudman had won the first 6-1. Rudman eventually went on to win the set, 7-5.
After winning the ITA National Team Indoors Championship to start off the season, the Jackets have had arguably their most successful season ever.
They reached No. 1 for the first time in the school's history. Tech climbed to the top of the rankings shortly after capturing the national championship.
The Jackets lost just four matches this year, all to ranked teams. While they lost to some of the lower ranked teams, they also defeated numerous ranked teams, including top-10 teams Northwestern and Auburn earlier in the season.
The team is currently ranked No. 5 in the nation and has been among the nation's elite teams.
The team has finished second in the ACC conference. Tech and Clemson shared identical 10-1 records, but Clemson held the tie-breaker as the squad had defeated Tech in Tech's first ACC match of the season. It was Tech's only ACC loss of the season.
