Miami Women Reach Finals with Rain-delayed Win over USC; Stanford Cruises over Florida

©Colette Lewis 2006
Palo Alto--

The sun shone on the Hurricanes Monday morning as they converted their rain-delay advantage in singles to a 4-1 win over the third seeded University of Southern California.

Trailing 1-0 with the loss of the doubles point on Sunday, Miami quickly evened the score when Caren Seenauth took out Carine Vermeulen at No. 6. Melissa Applebaum scored a huge win for the Hurricanes at No. 2, when she upset Amanda Fink, the seventh ranked player in the country in three sets. Miami's Patricia Starzyk finished off Anca Anastasiu at No. 5 just minutes later for a 3-1 lead and it was No. 3 Monika Dancevic who clinched it with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 over Luana Magnani.

"I was more relaxed today than I was against Notre Dame," said the freshman from Canada about the Hurricanes upset of the No. 2 seeds on Friday. "I went through the nerves then. I wasn't playing my best tennis yesterday and I had to kick it up a notch."

"The break helped us," said head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews. "Especially at No. 3, when our freshman got her heels into the match. Late in the year we've been playing agressive tennis, not waiting for things to happen."

Audra Cohen, the Hurricanes' No 1, who raced from her third set with Lindsey Nelson to congratulate Dancevic, was even more convinced that the rain delay favored her team.

"I think the break was a tremendous advantage for us," said the sophomore, who is the second ranked player in the country and has lost only one match this year. "We played as if we were even, not ahead."

Anyone looking for suspense in the Stanford women's match Monday against Florida knew it wasn't in the cards about ten minutes into the doubles. It took the top-ranked and undefeated home team only 35 minutes to dispose of the Gator no. 2 and 3 teams 8-0 and 8-2. And the singles gave the number four seeds no hope either, as Stanford took the first set in every match. Celia Durkin (no. 6), Alice Barnes (no. 2) and Whitney Deason (no. 5) collected the points to put Stanford in the final on Tuesday.