UCLA dominates Women of Troy
Senior Yasmin Schnack celebrates a 8-6 doubles victory against USC Friday in her final regular season home game at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
By Daniel Khayat
April 18, 2010 9:23 p.m.
For the UCLA women’s tennis team, Friday’s 6-1 drubbing of USC was the ideal way to end conference play and ready up for this weekend’s Pac-10 Tournament.
For Yasmin Schnack, it was the perfect way to end her last regular season match as a Bruin.
“I’m so proud of everyone,” said the team’s lone senior. “I can’t say anything more than that. We’ve worked so hard for this, and for us to beat ‘SC 6-1 in our last dual match is great.”
The No. 7 Bruins (19-3, 6-1 Pac-10) battled through a tough doubles session but eventually swept the No. 16 Women of Troy (13-8, 5-2) to take a 1-0 lead.
In singles, UCLA appeared to have its hands full as USC jumped out to early leads on the three front singles courts. However, Schnack and junior Noelle Hickey each battled back from shaky starts and took their matches to put the outcome beyond doubt.
At the beginning of her match against USC’s Maria Sanchez, the No. 3 singles player in the country, Schnack appeared uncomfortable and outmatched, quickly falling behind, 5-0. But at the timeout after the fifth game, Schnack composed herself on the sideline and proceeded to win the next nine games, taking a 7-5, 2-0 lead. Schnack never looked back, eventually winning the match 7-5, 7-5.
“I didn’t want to go out that first set getting bageled,” Schnack said. “There’s a big rivalry between Maria and I. We’re both from (Northern California); she’s from Modesto and I’m from Sacramento, so we played each other through juniors and now all through college. I was like, “˜I’m not letting this girl get me 6-0.'”
Hickey overcame a 6-1 first set loss to Alison Ramos on court 2 and wound up turning the tables completely, winning by the score of 1-6, 6-1, 6-1.
“I got out to a really slow start,” Hickey said. “I was frustrated with my game, the line calls, and all kinds of stuff that I should have let go, but I couldn’t. Then right before the second set started, I just let my mind be clear and decided that I was going to hustle for every ball. Then one game turned into two, and two turned into 12.”
Hickey, who transferred from Georgia Tech in January, is a relative newcomer to the UCLA-USC rivalry but has no love lost for the Trojans.
“I’m no rookie to college sports and rivalries,” she said. “I knew this was a big day. In being here for less than four months, I’ve already developed an intense distaste for ‘SC. We could have not been in the running for the Pac-10 and this would have been the biggest match of the season regardless.”
Junior Maya Johansson celebrated her 22nd birthday on Friday by posting an impressive 6-0, 6-0 win over Cristala Andrews on court 6. Johansson finishes the season 17-1 in singles.
“(Johansson) has been great,” UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “I didn’t see her play, but just from the score she must have played really well to beat her. She’s a good leader for our team as well as a junior, an upperclassman, and it’s great to see her have so much success this year.”
Junior Andrea Remynse and freshman Stephanie Hoffpauir also came out on top of their singles matches.
Freshman Pamela Montez seemed like a lock to ensure the sweep, but after getting out to a hot start, she fell behind Valeria Pulido and dropped the third set tiebreaker. Pulido won 0-6, 7-6 (8-6), 1-0 (10-8).
“This was huge for our last home match to beat the Trojans like this,” Sampras Webster said. “It’s very impressive. We played extremely well today, and to beat ‘SC, we’ve got to play well. We did a great job starting out with the doubles. We really set the tone at that point. It was great to be at home with the crowd to help us.”
