UPDATED: April 15 at 6:51 p.m.

After beating then-No. 3 Georgia Tech on April 1, Syracuse was stuck in place. SU lost its next three matches.

But in its last home match of the season, SU flipped the script and ended its season at Drumlins Country Club on a high note.

“The win couldn’t happen at a better time,” head coach Younes Limam said.

Behind all-around doubles and singles play, No. 28 Syracuse (15-6, 7-6 Atlantic Coast) shifted its recent momentum and coasted to a 4-0 win against Notre Dame (10-12, 2-10). After the Orange took the doubles point quickly, Gabriela Knutson, Libi Mesh and Anna Shkudun led the way to give SU the win.

“This win shows we’re ready to fight,” graduate student Shkudun said, “and come back no matter what.”

Before the match, Shkudun and senior Nicole Mitchell were honored during a short ceremony for senior day. While Mitchell did not play during the match, Shkudun competed in doubles and singles for the Orange.

In third doubles, Shkudun and Sofya Golubovskaya cruised to a 6-0 victory to start off a strong day for SU. Knutson and Miranda Ramirez opened first doubles with a quick 3-0 lead but dropped three of the next four games. Early, Knutson missed three easy volleys which each led to quick moments of frustration.

Unfazed by early mistakes, Ramirez opened the eighth game with an uncontested ace. The No. 13 pairing in the nation flashed a smile at each other after the serve and proceeded to win seven of the last eight points to clinch the doubles point for the Orange.

In first singles, Knutson looked to recover from a three-set collapse to Duke’s No. 5 Samantha Harris on Friday. After winning eight straight games to start the match, Knutson fell apart in a 6-0, 4-6, 0-6 loss two days prior.

Knutson opened the match against UND’s Allison Miller with an ace, but dropped the first game to go down a break. After falling behind 2-1, the junior won on a net cord — her ball clipped the top of the net before dropping to the other side — to start the fourth game.

“On Friday, I was worried I wouldn’t win those long crosscourt rallies,” Knutson said, “Today, I just had to overpower (Miller) to get back to being me.”

Knutson took the first set, 6-3, and opened the second set with a forehand winner past the outstretched arms of Miller, who got tangled up in netting after the point. Knutson controlled the second set with her serve, she said, and recorded two second-serve aces in the process. By putting pressure on Miller from the start, Knutson took the match, 6-3, 6-2, and gave SU its second point.

“Matches like this give me confidence,” Knutson said.

After not playing singles in SU’s last two matches, Mesh replaced Masha Tritou and did not disappoint. Mesh opened the match by sweeping the first set. By avoiding mistakes during long rallies, Mesh overpowered UND’s Rachel Chong from the start. The junior closed the match by only dropping two games and won 6-0, 6-2.

With one point remaining to give SU a win, Shkudun took advantage of the spotlight. Despite a three-game lead disappearing in the first set to go 5-5, Shkudun prevailed in the final two games and won 7-5. As the crowd honed in on presumably Shkudun’s final set at Drumlins, the graduate student clinched the match for the Orange in a 7-5, 6-2 win.

SU’s 4-0 victory against the Fighting Irish gives the Orange 10 home wins, which doubles its total from last year. As for the implications of this match, Limam said this match “gets (SU) on the right track.”

“Against Miami we played good and against Duke we didn’t fight hard enough,” Knutson said. “There was a lot of potential in those losses, but we didn’t punch them hard enough at the end like we did today.”

Published on April 15, 2018 at 3:21 pm

Contact KJ: kjedelma@syr.edu | @KJEdelman