It was a windy afternoon at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center as the Wolfpack took on their ACC rivals, the Miami Hurricanes. The #12 Wolfpack rallied past the #25 Hurricanes for an impressive 6-1 victory to improve their record to 16-3 overall for the season, and 6-1 in ACC play. With this win, the Pack have now come out on top the last 10 of 11 matches they’ve played, and have taken down 7 nationally ranked teams this season. The win also marks the first time in program history that the Pack have beaten the Hurricanes.
The team got off to a dominant start in the doubles matches, and were able to clinch their first point over Miami. #9 ranked duo Anna Rogers and Alana Smith extended their current win streak to 6 matches, marking the first victory of the doubles matches with a 6-3 finish over #34 Daniella Rodan and Daevenia Achong. After dropping 2-6 in the second doubles match to Miami, the third duo of Claudia Wiktorin and Adriana Reami were able to secure a clutch 7-5 win against Lucia Marzal and Yuna Ito. With that, the Pack entered the singles matches with a 1-0 lead over Miami.
The singles matches got off to a rocky start for the Wolfpack, with Miami winning 4 of the 6 sets right out of the gate. At one point during the first sets, Miami led all but one of the matches. But the Pack showed a striking resilience in the second and third sets, and the team was able to rally past the Hurricanes to secure wins in 5 of their 6 matches.
The biggest showdown of the day featured #31 Rogers for the Pack and #2 Estela Perez-Somarriba for the Hurricanes. After dropping the first set to Perez, Rogers fought back in a 7-6 (4) win in set two, which set her up for the 6-3 victory in set three to clinch the match.
#116 Reami had a strong showing in her singles match, defeating Yuna Ito 6-1, 6-4 to win the first singles point for the Pack. Bianca Moldovan extended her current win streak in singles to 11 matches in her victory against Marzal. Starting 2-6 in the first set, Moldovan came back to win 6-4, 6-3 in the last two sets to put yet another point on the board for the Pack. Amanda Rebol put up an impressive battle in her two sets to win the match 7-6(3), 6-3. The last point of the day came from #70 Smith, who overcame a 3-6 start to win 6-3, 7-6(2) in her match. The final score was 6-1, sealing a Wolfpack victory.
Next up, the Pack will seek to continue their ACC dominance as they face the Virginia Tech Hokies on Sunday, March 24th, 2019 at 1:00 PM at J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center. After that, they hit the road to face Pittsburgh in yet another ACC match-up on Friday, March 29th.