Austin Notches 200th Win
Box Score (PDF)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Ithaca College women's tennis team continued to steamroll through its Empire 8 dual-match schedule on Saturday afternoon, blowing past Nazareth to move to 7-0. It was a milestone victory for head coach,
Bill Austin, who notched his 200
th dual-match win since taking over the program in 2000. The triumph over the Golden Flyers also ensures that the Bombers will be the top seed at the Empire 8 Championships, hosted by Houghton College in two weekends.
As has been the case throughout the Bombers dominant fall season, they once again swept all nine flights against the Golden Flyers. It was the sixth consecutive match the team has won by way of sweep, while the Bombers have only dropped two points in dual-match play in total this season.
Ithaca battled through a tough start to the match with three hard-fought victories in doubles play. The third-flight tandem of
Maddie Overholt and
Kathryn Shaffer got IC on the board first with an 8-4 win over Nazareth's Maeve Morgan and Maelah Nadeau. IC's top-flight grouping of
Haley Kusak and
Caroline Dunn wrapped up their match almost simultaneously, downing Marisa Joyce and Allison Friends by the same 8-4 score. The win marked Kusak's 59
th career doubles triump, tying her with Melanie Cohen '11 for third-place on the program's all-time doubles wins list.
The closest matchup in doubles play came in the second-flight. It took Ithaca's duo of
Brianna Ruback and
Taylor Ginestro 13 games to dispatch the Golden Flyers' middle grouping of Jean McCarthy and Elizabeth Karstedt, eventually prevailing 8-5. The win gave the Bombers a healthy 3-0 lead heading into singles play.
It was IC's top two singles players that wrapped up the victory. Kusak pushed the Bombers' lead to 4-0 with a clinical 6-0, 6-1 triumph over McCarthy in the top flight. Ruback scored the game-winning team point with an equally impressive 6-0, 6-0 sweep of Friends in the second-flight matchup. Kusak's singles victory moved her past Melanie Cohen into third-place on the program's all-time singles list with 55 for her career.
Dunn played a gutsy match against Nazareth's Joyce in the third flight. She battled through two hard-fought sets to win 6-2, 6-3 and extend IC's lead to 6-0.
Jodi Grosberg followed with a 6-0, 6-4 win in the fourth flight.
The Bombers put the 9-0 victory away with some impressive showings in the bottom two flights. Overholt continued her strong run in the sixth spot, besting Nazareth's Aliana Burgos 6-1, 6-2. Shaffer closed out the match with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Maelah Nadeau.
Ithaca returns to action on Saturday, October 8, as the team concludes its regular-season Empire 8 schedule against St. John Fisher College at the Wheeler Tennis Courts. Start time is slated for 12:00 p.m.