“It’s disturbing.”
That’s how Virginia women’s tennis coach Mark Guilbeau described his young squad’s 2-5 loss to Tennessee Saturday at the ITA National Indoors Qualifier, which cost the team a trip to the National Indoors tournament next weekend.
This weekend, however, the No. 29 Cavaliers (3-1) get a chance at redemption. After a road match with No. 31 Ohio State (3-2) Friday, Virginia will travel to Knoxville Sunday where they get another shot at the No. 22 Lady Vols, whom Virginia has never beaten during Guilbeau’s three years as coach.
“Several times now, we’ve had to learn lessons from Tennessee,” senior Maggie Yahner said. “They yet again taught us another important lesson.”
Though Guilbeau admitted that Tennessee is “a better team,” he was nonetheless frustrated with his squad’s showing in Saturday’s loss, particularly from his big guns in singles; junior Jennifer Stevens, freshman Emily Fraser and freshman Lindsey Hardenbergh all lost at the top three singles positions.
Guilbeau noted, however, that he was only able to view these matches from afar, because he spent most of his time at the No. 4 through No. 6 singles courts. Although he said he could hear that they were losing, it was not until he spoke with some of his colleagues at the tournament that he heard the worst news of all.
“I had three or four coaches — all the coaches at the tournament — tell me, ‘You guys got out-competed there [against Tennessee],’” Guilbeau said. “That was an awful thing to hear. I know our kids try hard and they want it, but there’s always another level, and Tennessee showed us that big time.”
Guilbeau said that it wasn’t a matter of effort or desire to win — the errors, he said, were more in the preparation and the mental approach to the matches.
“We always talk about our strengths to their weaknesses, and understanding that, having an intelligence towards that or at least an attention towards that,” Guilbeau said. “I don’t know that we did that real well.”
Guilbeau added that his players need to be more patient when picking their moments to hit a winner and must realize that an opponent’s error is just as valuable as a great shot from Virginia.
Then, there was simply the attitude, which was a factor in the team’s loss. Guilbeau has said throughout the season his team has not always been on the same frequency as the coaches — whether it was in accomplishing team goals or even respecting the coaching staff’s wishes. Against Tennessee, these internal conflicts manifested themselves.
Tennessee was “out-competing in terms of handling nerves, out-competing in terms of our demeanor and our positive expressions,” Guilbeau said. “I could hear Tennessee every 30 seconds with a verbal positive.”
Guilbeau addressed all of these shortcomings in a team meeting that he called at Virginia’s first practice after the loss Tuesday. Then, much to Guilbeau’s surprise and delight, the freshman Hardenbergh — whose maturity and work ethic Guilbeau admires — asked if she could speak to the team as well.
At the meeting, Guilbeau said, Hardenbergh handed out laminated cards on which she had written the goal of making the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16. The cards also illustrated a bracket that showed Tennessee in the ITA NationalIndoors draw as a reminder of what the team failed to accomplish last weekend. Guilbeau said that Hardenbergh was drawing from legendary men’s basketball coach Bob Knight’s book “Knight: My Story”, in which Knight discusses how he had his 1984 men’s basketball Olympic team wear gold medals around their necks before the tournament started as a reminder of the team’s ultimate goal.
Hardenbergh’s talk was “an incredible step that a young kid would take to step up and positively support and challenge her team,” Guilbeau said. “What she presented us needs to be filled up with all kinds of habits and actions so that that goal starts to really carry some significance.”
The Cavaliers get their first chance to measure the effect of Hardenbergh’s presentation Friday against Ohio State. Though Ohio State has no ranked singles players or double teams in the top 125 in the country, their No. 31 national ranking is comparable to Virginia at No. 29, and Guilbeau made it clear that the similarity in team rankings does the two programs justice.
“That’s gonna be a heck of a battle — I’d say it’s 50-50,” Guilbeau said, adding, “I know if we play our very best and compete our very best, that’s a match we can win.”
The main event of the weekend, however, is clearly Tennessee. It’s not often in college tennis that a team gets a chance to avenge a loss the very next weekend, particularly at such a pivotal moment not only for the team, but for a program still in search of an identity.
“It’s ironic,” Guilbeau said. “You’re very fortunate in sports to have the opportunity after a setback to sometimes go right back and get it.”
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