Jan. 26, 2008
ATLANTA – Christy Striplin and Noelle Hickey opened the match with an 8-0 doubles win and Amanda McDowell won her first 11 games en route to a 6-0, 6-1 singles victory to lead No. 1 Georgia Tech (2-0) to a 7-0 win against No. 29 USF (6-1) Saturday afternoon at the Bill Moore Tennis Center.
“It felt good to get a win at home against another solid team,” said head coach Bryan Shelton. “I felt like we came out of the blocks fired up in doubles, and then jumped on them in singles, especially in the first three matches.”
The victory was Georgia Tech’s 23rd-straight, dating back to March 3, 2007, and the Yellow Jackets have won 19 consecutive home matches, dating back to the 2006 season.
Striplin and Hickey improved to 9-4 on the season and 2-0 in dual matches with their sweep of Natalia Guevara and Jessica Sweeting before Kristi Miller and Kirsten Flower won seven consecutive games to finish off an 8-2 win at No. 1 doubles, giving Georgia Tech a 1-0 lead in the match. McDowell and Whitney McCray then finished off the doubles sweep with an 8-5 victory over Allyn Mueller and Jessica Zok at the No. 2 spot.
Third-ranked McDowell pushed the score to 2-0 with her rout of Liz Cruz at No. 1 singles, and No. 22 McCray gave Tech a 3-0 lead with a 6-1, 6-1 win against Zok at No. 3 singles. Tech’s seventh-ranked Miller came back from a 3-2 deficit in her second set to drop Mueller, 6-0, 6-3, before Striplin pushed the match score to 5-0 with a 10-point tiebreaker win in the third set, 1-6, 6-1, 1-0 (5).
“Amanda handled (playing No. 1 singles) really well today,” Shelton added. “She’s a fearless player, and it was great to see her step up and play No. 1 in front of a home crowd. She executed very well and with such positive energy, and I think it was a great confidence booster for her.”
Hickey, ranked No. 56 in the nation in singles, defeated USF’s 71st-ranked Guevara, 6-2, 6-3 before Flower polished off the match sweep by dropping Sweeting, 6-2, 6-0, at the No. 6 singles spot.
Tech will take the week off before hosting No. 7 Northwestern next Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Bill Moore Tennis Center.
Tennis Match ResultsUSF vs Georgia TechJan 26, 2008 at Atlanta, Ga.
#1 Georgia Tech 7, #29 USF 0
Singles competition 1. #3 Amanda McDowell (GT) def. Liz Cruz (USF) 6-0, 6-1 2. #7 Kristi Miller (GT) def. Allyn Mueller (USF) 6-0, 6-3 3. #22 Whitney McCray (GT) def. Jessica Zok (USF) 6-1, 6-1 4. #38 Christy Striplin (GT) def. Iciri Rai (USF) 1-6, 6-1, 1-0 (10-5) 5. #56 Noelle Hickey (GT) def. #71 Natalia Guevara (USF) 6-2, 6-3 6. Kirsten Flower (GT) def. Jessica Sweeting (USF) 6-2, 6-0
Doubles competition 1. Kristi Miller/Kirsten Flower (GT) def. #40 Liz Cruz/Iciri Rai (USF) 8-2 2. Whitney McCray/Amanda McDowell (GT) def. Allyn Mueller/Jessica Zok (USF) 8-5 3. Noelle Hickey/Christy Striplin (GT) def. Natalia Guevara/Jessica Sweeting (USF) 8-0
Match Notes: USF 6-1; National ranking #29 Georgia Tech 2-0; National ranking #1 Order of finish: Doubles (3,1,2); Singles (1,3,2,4,5,6) A-135
