A tight battle at No. 2 singles featuring Claire Czerwonka (Kenosha, Wis. / Saint Joseph Catholic Academy) served as the morning’s most compelling match, but host Barry prevailed on all three doubles courts and all six singles courts to record a 7-0 win over the Valparaiso University tennis team on Wednesday morning in Miami Shores, Fla. The Buccaneers are ranked No. 1 nationally in the latest Division-II Women’s ITA Top 25 Coaches’ Poll.

How It Happened

• Claire’s No. 2 singles showdown with Xiyao Wang was the final match to conclude as it was the lone match of the day to reach a third set. Claire started the match with a 6-4 win in Set 1. The two players had a stretch of exchanging breaks to keep the second set on serve at 4-3 through seven games. However, Wang broke serve yet again to go up 5-3, then served for the set and converted to win 6-3.
• That second-set triumph for the host forced a third set that used a 10-point tiebreak format since all other matches had already wrapped up and the Bucs had secured the team victory. Claire took an early 3-1 lead, but Wang rallied to make it 3-3 as the players switched sides for the first time in the tiebreak. Claire won the next two points, breaking serve once and holding once, to go up 5-3, but Wang cut the deficit to 5-4 as the serve shifted back to the host. Claire won the first point of Wang’s serve to make it 6-4, but Wang bounced back to salvage the second and cut the lead to 6-5.
• The tiebreak reached a six-all deadlock when Wang won the first point of Claire’s serve. After the players switched sides of the court, Claire earned a key point to take a 7-6 lead as the serve shifted back to Wang. Claire won the first point of Wang’s serve to build up an 8-6 lead, but Wang hung around by holding on her second serve of the sequence to make it 8-7. Claire won the next point to go up 9-7 and gave herself a chance to serve for the match. However, Wang fended off back-to-back match points and eventually won four straight points in total to capture a compelling tiebreak 11-9.
• The Bucs won the other five singles matches in straight sets. Olivia Czerwonka’s (Kenosha, Wis. / Saint Joseph Catholic Academy) No. 1 singles match came against the No. 1 ranked player in the D-II nation, Deniz Khazan. In addition, Amanda Tabanera (Valencia, Calif. / Valencia) took on 15^th-ranked Kim Moosbacher at No. 3.
• Claire and Olivia saw their commendable 12-match doubles winning streak come to an end as they incurred their first setback since Oct. 2 at No. 1 doubles. The match, which came against Barry’s Deniz Khazan and Madeline Bosnjak, was on serve at 2-2, then the sisters came up with a break to go up 3-2. Barry broke serve right back to tie the match at three games apiece, then the Bucs held serve and broke serve again before winning a fourth straight game to capture the match 6-3.

Up Next

The Beacons (6-6) will continue a stretch of matches on three straight days as the spring trip continues on Thursday. Valpo will face off with Lynn University at 8 a.m. in Boca Raton, Fla. Lynn is also among the top Division-II programs nationally as the Fighting Knights are ranked No. 10 in the latest ITA poll.