March 4, 2011
ATLANTA – After earning its first Atlantic Coast Conference match win of the season with a 5-2 victory at No. 11 Clemson March 2, the Georgia Tech women’s tennis team (6-4, 1-1 ACC) returns home to the Bill Moore Tennis Center to host the No. 12 Miami Hurricanes (8-2, 1-0 ACC) on Saturday, March 5 at noon. Admission is free and open to the public.
Senior Sasha Krupina boasts the best Yellow Jacket dual match record at 7-2, playing mostly from the number four and five spots of the lineup. Junior Jillian O’Neill owns the highest Tech ranking after moving up to No. 40 in this week’s Campbell’s/ITA College Tennis Rankings.
Tenth ranked senior Bianca Eichkorn leads the Hurricanes with a 9-1 record playing from Miami’s number one spot of the lineup. The Hurricanes defeated No. 14 Florida State, 6-1, in their ACC opener on Feb. 13 and are coming off of a 4-3 win over No. 4 Michigan on March 2.
“These types of matches are fun,” head coach Bryan Shelton said. “Miami is probably the grittiest team we’ll see this year. They’re feisty, they’re loud, they’re aggressive and they come to play hard. We know their team pretty well. We got to see them play a couple weeks ago up at UVA, so we’ll have some ideas of what to expect from them.
“It’ll come down to us coming out here and executing well,” Shelton added. “They are a team that is obviously used to playing outside down in Miami, so that’ll be a good test for our team. I’m sure our players will want to get our first home win in the ACC come Saturday.”
The Yellow Jackets are coming off a 5-2 win at No. 11 Clemson in a match that came down to the final two singles matches. With Georgia Tech leading 3-2, Krupina and junior Caroline Lilley each went to third sets with Tech needing just one Jacket to get the victory.
And both came through for coach Shelton. Lilley earned a 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 win over Clemson’s Nelly Ciolkowski in the third spot off the lineup and Krupina downed the Tigers’ Maria Belaya, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, on court four to send the Jackets back to Atlanta with a win.
Last season, Miami snapped Georgia Tech’s nine-match winning streak with a 5-2 victory in Coral Gables, on March 24, but the Yellow Jackets again claimed a victory when it was most important, in the ACC Tournament. Krupina clinched the 4-3 win over the No. 2 seeded Hurricanes with a 7-5, 2-6, 7-6(5) win at No. 3 singles in the ACC quarterfinals.
Live stats will be available through RamblinWreck.com and fans can follow Tech tennis on Twitter, @GT_WTEN, for instant updates.
— RamblinWreck.com —
