SPORTS
UW snags berth in NCAA tourney
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by Mac VerStandig
Thursday, May 5, 2005
The No. 34 Wisconsin women’s tennis team received a second consecutive bid to the NCAA tournament Wednesday and now has eight days to make travel plans for South Carolina, where they will face off against William & Mary either May 13 or 14.
Despite losing to Northwestern in the semi-finals of the Big Ten tournament last weekend, the Badgers emerge from the season as the second-highest-ranked team in the conference and will enter the national tournament with a better national seed than last year, when they were edged out 4-3 by Tennessee in the first round.
A tournament berth has been among the team’s goals all season.
“Everything we do is to geared toward our team and getting the team into the NCAAs,” head coach Patti Henderson commented after a late February practice session. That season-long ambition has now paid off.
A victory over William & Mary would pit the Badgers against the victor of a Furman vs. Clemson match, in which the latter team, playing host to the regional opening rounds, is favored to win. Should Wisconsin manage to claim a duo of wins in South Carolina, the team would advance to the round of 16 to be played in Athens, Ga. Northwestern — the same squad that bounced the Badgers from the Big Ten tournament just last week — is favored to advance out of the first two rounds and would potentially face Wisconsin in the round of 16.
For Badger seniors Katie McGaffigan and Lindsay Martin, this will mark a third and final NCAA tournament, while freshmen Nicole Beck and Chelsea Nusslock will be venturing into their first appearance.
