May 9, 2008

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - For the second straight year, the JU women's tennis faced a Florida team that was ranked among the best in the country in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Unfortunately for the Dolphins, the result was similar as JU dropped a 4-0 decision to the sixth-ranked Gators at the Ring Tennis Complex on Tuesday night.

"I thought the girls played well," said JU head coach Shane Wood. "We really fought through every court which was the goal that we had planned for ourselves. Playing a nationally ranked program, I thought the team followed through really well."

The Gators opened the match by taking the doubles point. The team of Megan Alexander and Marrit Boonstra, ranked eight in the country, won the No. 1 match 8-1 over JU's Iva Jaresova and Tatiana Soldatova.

In the No. 2 doubles match, JU's Lena Willi and Fernanda Carrero fell 8-2 to Florida's Whitney Benik and Csilla Borsanyi.

In the singles matches, Florida opened the scoring by taking the No. 5 match as Boonstra defeated Jaresova, 6-0, 6-0. In the No. 1 match, Lina Xu fell to #29 Julia Cohen, 6-1, 6-0, snapping her eight-match winning streak.

Anastasia Revzina, ranked 96th nationally, sealed the match with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Carrero in the No. 6 match.

The three other matches that were in progress had the Dolphins staying with the Gators. Willi dropped the first set in the No. 2 match 6-2 and trailed 5-0 when the match was halted. Soldatova trailed 6-2, 2-1 in the No. 3 match while Juliana Umeki was trailing 6-2, 5-2 in the No. 4 match when play was completed.

While the result wasn't as hoped, the Dolphins (20-6) finished the season with the school's first 20-win season.

"I think we've got a good foundation built, but we need a few more pieces and we need to keep working hard and to just keep working hard year after year," Wood said. "As far as being here two years in a row, it's definitely a step in the right direction."