Temple (6-12, 0-0 American Athletic Conference) fell to NJIT (11-4, 0-0 Southland Conference) 6-1 Friday afternoon at the Temple Tennis Complex. Temple had come into the match having won two straight matches.
KEY MOMENTS
- Temple’s Kelly Ritcher had a serve that was too hot to handle for the NJIT duo of Shalom Salvi and Arina Babkova. Ritcher and her partner Marianthi Christoforidou took full advantage of their opponents to a 1-0 lead.
- Ritcher began to have struggles, hitting the ball into the net three straight times for the Highlanders to creep back into the match.
- The Temple duo of Maria Martinez and Martyna Mackiewicz was able to stay level with the Highlander tandem of Irene Cocero and Laura Wipfli. Martinez recorded back-to-back points to keep the Owls in the set down 5-3. However, NJIT was able to pull off the 6-3 win following her heroics to complete a doubles sweep.
- Ritcher and Christoforidou had a back-and-forth against Salvi and Babkova, trying to crawl back into the match. Christoforidou lost the point for Temple but redeemed herself on the next go around to keep the match in reach.
- Temple’s Nina Andreoni and Irmak Ozturk had a rally against NJIT’s Paula Menendez and Feyza Aydin where Ozturk had a ball get by her in the corner for a Highlander point. Andreoni was able to score a point with a light tap by the net.
- Andreoni and Ozturk went on a lengthy rally against the Highlanders, which NJIT promptly ended. The Owls’ duo lost the point and lost the match 6-4 after holding a 4-2 lead.
- Martinez over shot a ball in her singles match against Cocero to give NJIT the point. She had a similar blunder on the next serve to concede yet another point. Marintez and Cocero ended up fighting through for a tiebreaker, where Cocero was able to pick up the 8-7 victory.
- Mackiewicz got hot early against Babkova, ripping a ball right past her to get on the board. She then whiffed on a ball from Babkova and got beat during a rally to give up her early lead. The trend continued as she dropped the final set 6-3 to lose the match.
- Christoforidou picked up a quick point against Salvi in a rally that saw both players run around the court. She carried that momentum for the rest of the match to pick up a sweep.
- Ozturk played from behind after dropping the first set against Wipfli. The two went back and forth in the second set, with Ozturk getting the ball past her on a rally and then spiking it down to level the game. Ozturk was unable to keep the momentum going in the third set and dropped it 6-2.
- Ritcher’s mistakes from her doubles matchup played into singles play against Menendez, having numerous balls hit the net. Ricther was able to send the match to a third set but fell 6-1.
- Temple’s Aditi Vaidya kept up with Aydin after winning the first set 6-4. Aydin stole a 7-5 win to send the match to a decisive final set. Aydin got the best of the Vaidya and pulled off the 10-8 tiebreaker victory.
THE NUMBERS
- Temple dropped all three matches in doubles play.
- The duo of Andreoni and Ozturk led Menendez and Aydin 4-2 before surrendering four straight points in a 6-4 loss.
- Four of the six singles matchups went into three sets.
- Temple won one singles match on the day, which came from Christoforidou in straight sets.
- Temple had two third-set tiebreakers in singles action and went 0-2 on the day.
- Temple was without Thamara Kawaratani for the second consecutive match with a chronic elbow injury. The expectation is that she won’t be back until the AAC Tournament on April 17.
WORDS FROM COACH
“We have a lot to be proud of,” said Temple head coach Jeff Brandes. “The effort was really good and that’s what you take away from every match. The outcome isn’t always what you want, but we control the effort.”
ON TAP
Temple will stay at home when it takes on Farliegh Dickenson (8-6, 5-0, Northeast Conference) on April 8 at 11 a.m.
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