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Princeton University Athletics
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Feature: The Road to Back-to-Back NCAAs for Women's Tennis
May 07, 2015 | Women's Tennis
Laura Granville knows quite a bit about advancing in brackets come May.
During her two-year stint playing at Stanford University before turning professional, Granville not only helped Stanford make two NCAA finals and win one team title, but she also went 2 for 2 – as a freshman and sophomore, that is – in winning the NCAA singles title.
Of course, then, the Princeton's coach when it won an NCAA tournament match last year for the first time in program history was Granville, then in her second season on the job.
To advance in a tournament, a team first has to be in the tournament. Granville comes from a program where that's been true every single year, with Stanford making it 34 for 34 this year and earning a No. 14 overall seed. Only the Cardinal, California and UCLA have been in the draw every time since the first NCAA women's tennis tournament in 1982.
But the Tigers are no tournament neophytes either. Making its sixth NCAA appearance this year, Princeton has tied Penn for second in the Ivy in all-time appearances, while Harvard has spaced its league-best 14 appearances out between the eighties (five times), nineties (four times) and 2000s (five times).
The Ivy is getting stronger in the sport. For the second time in league history and first since 1996 and '97, the Ivy gained an at-large berth in addition to the automatic bid in back-to-back years, with Dartmouth getting selected this year and Columbia last year.
That said, and despite coming from one of the three programs never to miss making an NCAA draw, Granville knows making it into the field of 64 is an accomplishment in itself.
“I think (making the NCAA tournament every year) a great goal to have and I think the team has done a wonderful job of embracing that goal and really working toward it,” Granville says. “I think we understand the work that goes into that, so it's something that we know how difficult it is to make the tournament every year. I don't think we take it lightly at all and I think the girls are just so proud and happy that they were able to make it again. I think they really have set the foundation and I think going forward every year that's going to be our goal.”
Though Granville has been on the job for just three seasons, the “firsts” she's helped the team achieve are already considerable. The win last year over Arizona State in the NCAA first round was the first time Princeton won a postseason match. This year, she became the first coach to take Princeton to back-to-back NCAA tournaments.
Yet, that second accomplishment nearly didn't happen.
Princeton got off to a slow start to the 2015 spring season, but so had the team last year before getting hot toward the end of the spring break trip and keeping that rolling right through a 7-0 Ivy League season.
After starting 0-5 this year against five ranked opponents, the Tigers at last got their first win over a ranked foe at the end of February against Memphis and picked up two more on the spring trip. A loss to No. 11 Oklahoma State was no setback, as the Tigers rattled off three wins to open the Ivy season before heading to Dartmouth.
It was only the midway point of the Ivy season, but a test against the Big Green, the highest-ranked team in the Ivy at No. 37 in the nation, was an opportunity.
“I knew it was a very important match, just because we lost to Dartmouth earlier in the year (at the ECAC tournament) and Dartmouth was the highest-ranked Ivy team,” Granville says. “It was important for our Ivy League standing, but for our ranking too. If we were able to beat them, then our ranking would go way up. I knew how important it was, but I didn't want to let the girls know how important it was. I think they knew, but we just tried to go about it like every other match. I think it almost helped us that we had lost to them earlier in the year, because I think they really came out strong and they wanted to get a win.”
Princeton did indeed come out firing against the Big Green, taking the doubles point and going up 3-1 before Dartmouth won a pair of matches to tie it. Katie Goepel, who had lost a second set 7-5 on court six, was all but unstoppable in the third set, clinching the team victory with a 6-1 win in that frame.
Princeton kept it going that weekend with a win at No. 63 Harvard, and as Granville said, the team's ranking went way up, jumping 13 spots from No. 53 to No. 40. Princeton had won 12 Ivy League matches in a row, and if it could get past No. 46 Columbia and No. 75 Cornell, the Tigers would become the first team in nearly a decade to put together back-to-back undefeated Ivy seasons.
Not so fast.
Things didn't go according to plan on the northern tip of Manhattan, with Columbia taking the doubles point and three of the first five singles matches off the court to spoil Princeton's perfect Ivy season and put a whole lot more meaning into the regular-season finale back at the Lenz Tennis Center against the Big Red. Princeton had entered the weekend needing to win just one of the two matches to secure the outright Ivy title and the NCAA automatic bid, but the margin for error had disappeared.
“I was really impressed with how the team handled it,” Granville says of the Columbia loss. “We knew that Columbia was going to be a tough match and they are especially tough at their indoor courts. I think that our team played well and I think that gave them confidence going into the Cornell match and the team this year handled the pressure so well. We felt like every team really came after us this year since we were the defending champions and they were able to handle that, and I felt that they were very match-tough by the time Cornell came.”
With a day between the matches, Princeton had time to rebound from the unbeaten Ivy season having slipped away and get back to focusing on the sole Ivy title and the chance to get back to the postseason. The doubles point went to Princeton, and Katrine Steffensen and Lindsay Graff put Princeton on the brink of victory with straight-set wins.
That's where things got a bit iffy.
Of the four matches remaining on court, Cornell won every first set. The Big Red got a straight-set win on court three to make it 3-1, and Amanda Muliawan had fallen behind 0-2 in her third set on court two.
But as she and the team had done this season and last, when the stakes started to rise, Princeton found a way. Muliawan won six straight games to clinch her match and the team win, sending Princeton to the postseason and clinching an unshared Ivy title for the second straight year.
“Compared to some of our other Ivy matches, I think it was a bit of a shock that we had lost so many first sets in singles,” Granville says of the Cornell match. “I think it was a little jarring for five minutes to look up and see that, but the girls were so mentally tough and they were battle-tested. We've had a really tough schedule all year, so they were used to these really tough, close matches. I think we had eight 4-3 matches this year, so I knew in my heart that one of those girls was going to come through and really be tough, and they did, so I was very proud of them.”
Now, the Tigers are back where they were a year ago, preparing for a higher-ranked opponent far from home. Last May, Arizona State met Princeton in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the Tigers gave the Sun Devils' 25th national ranking, 22 places higher than Princeton, no mind, taking four singles matches to pull the upset and make history with the team's first-ever postseason win. Princeton was two third sets away from doing the same to Alabama, the No. 2 team in the nation.
All that will count for Saturday morning against South Carolina in Charlottesville, Virginia is some confidence as 45th-ranked Princeton looks to knock off No. 29 South Carolina with a shot at No. 8 Virginia possibly waiting Sunday.
That's the idea, Granville says.
“I don't think that we were going to go to the tournament if we didn't get that win (against Cornell),” Granville says. “I think everyone was very happy, but yeah, (it was a relief). The girls kind of celebrated and this past week and kind of enjoyed themselves, and this week we're really looking forward to NCAAs and working hard.”