Nebraska Women's Tennis: 2008-09 Season in Review

The 2008-09 Nebraska women’s tennis season was one of streaks and records, as the Huskers had a successful 16-7 season while seeing some of its most impressive individual records shattered.

 

The Huskers started off the year with a fantastic fall season. The team went a combined 73-28 in singles and doubles matches during the fall, winning nine individual tournament titles, notably junior Wiveca Swarting’s ITA Central Regional Tournament singles title. Swarting won 14 singles matches in the fall, second on the team to freshman Mary Weatherholt’s impressive 16-2 singles record. Freshman Madeleine Geibert also reached double-digit singles wins in the fall, going 11-3, while also going 8-3 in doubles play.

 

Nebraska’s experience in the fall paid off at the beginning of the spring season, as the Huskers appeared to be in midseason form from their first match on. NU started off the season with 10 straight wins, and in fact was the second straight season in which Nebraska started off at least 10-0. The Huskers swept four of the 10 opponents, along with defeating two Big 12 opponents to start the year with a 2-0 conference record.

 

NU’s first loss of the season came at San DiegoState on March 17. The Huskers pushed the No. 25 Aztecs to the brink of defeat, but SDSU pulled out a 4-3 win. The loss seemed to put Nebraska on the wrong track, as it lost its next four matches after that ? although none of them were easy, as each team was ranked in the top 45 in the country, including No. 4 Baylor.

 

With their record at 10-5 and having lost five straight matches, the Huskers were in desperate need of a big win against conference foe OklahomaState at the NebraskaTennisCenter on April 3. Nebraska came back from a 3-1 deficit to take the match 4-3, which included several tense, thrilling matches. Two Husker freshman showed poise and confidence not normally seen in players that young as they helped finish the Husker comeback.

 

With Nebraska trailing 3-2, Madeleine Geibert found herself down 6-3 in a second-set tiebreaker, as OSU needed only one more point to put away the Huskers for good. Geibert battled back, winning five straight points to win the second-set tiebreaker, then won the third set going away to make it 3-3 Nebraska. Freshman Jennifer Holmberg clinched the match for NU after losing the first set by taking the next two, and Nebraska earned a crucial victory to stop its losing streak.

 

The win sparked Nebraska to win four of its final five matches, all against conference foes, earning them a 7-4 conference record and a No. 4 seed in the Big 12 Championships, its second-highest Big 12 finish in team history.

 

The Huskers earned a bye in the first round of the Big 12 Championships, and faced Colorado in the quarterfinals. The Huskers, less than a week removed from a 5-2 regular season win in Boulder, swept the Buffaloes 4-0 and advanced to the semifinals to play top-seeded Baylor, ranked fifth nationally. The Huskers fell to the Bears 4-0, although they played hard and had the match been played in its entirety, the Huskers most likely would have won at least two and possibly three points. The team ended the season with a 16-7 record, identical to the one it had the previous season in 2007-08.

 

Four Huskers earned Academic All-Big 12 honors, including Marianne Cicmanec, Ashley Finnegan, Wiveca Swarting and Stephanie Evans, while a pair of Huskers earned postseason athletic awards. Weatherholt was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year, and she along with fellow freshman Madeleine Geibert were named to the All-Big 12 singles team. Weatherholt is just the second Husker to ever earn Freshman of the Year honors in the conference, joining Kim Hartmann who won it in 2006. It was also the first time since 1998 that Nebraska had two singles players named to the All-Conference team.

 

Weatherholt also set an NU single-season record by winning 36 singles matches throughout the fall and spring seasons. Weatherholt went 16-2 in the fall and 20-2 in the spring for an impressive 36-4 overall record, shattering Sandra Noetzel’s record of 30 singles wins she set in the 1998-99 season. Swarting also reached 30 singles wins on the year, as her 14-5 record in the fall and 16-5 record in the spring gave her a 30-10 record on the year.

 

Weatherholt also set the single-season mark for singles winning percentage, as her .900 percentage broke Pamela Castillejos’s previous record of .880, which she set in 2004-05 when she went 22-3 in singles play.

 

Nebraska said goodbye to three seniors on the 2008-09 squad, as Marianne Cicmanec, Ashley Finnegan and Maria Ring all completed their final years as Huskers. Each came into the program as sophomores in the 2006-07 season and contributed immediately. They finished their careers with 136 combined wins between the three of them.