Brianna Morgan let out a yell of relief as she clinched the match point for a Florida victory.
The freshman battled through three lengthy sets to finalize a 4-2 win against Stanford on Sunday at Ring Tennis Complex.
Morgan previously struggled to maintain control with her serve, losing to Cardinal senior Stacey Tan, who closed up the two-point gap to 5-4.
But Morgan battled and found relief on the right side of Tan’s court just after the two went to deuce.
"I feel like I blacked out," Morgan said. "All I saw was Lauren (Embree) running at me, and I was like, ‘Oh, I must have won.’"
Morgan’s singles match was the longest the freshman played this season, battling through more than 3 hours of tennis.
"It says a lot about an athlete, I think, to have the lead, lose the lead and then act like nothing happened," coach Roland Thornqvist said. "Clearly, she was really nervous, and to be able to handle the nerves like that shows that we’ve got some real potential to work with."
The looming rainfall proved fortunate for the Gators. The match moved indoors during the last three singles matches, which resulted in two UF wins.
"We told [Thornqvist] that we wouldn’t be upset if we went indoors," junior Alexandra Cercone said. "We’ve had experience practicing in there, and Stanford hasn’t, so we figured maybe that could be a one-up on them."
Cercone’s was the first of the three singles matches to clinch match point for a 3-2 lead indoors.
The junior fell short in the first set against Stanford’s 10th-ranked Krista Hardebeck, a 6-4 decision played outside.
Once Cercone went inside, she dominated Hardebeck, winning the second set 6-4 and clinching the third set 6-3 by spiking the ball to Hardebeck’s corner on serve.
"She’s just a master of manipulating pace," Thornqvist said. "Under pressure, I think on one of [Hardebeck’s] sides, she broke down a little bit, and Alex did a really good job finding that time after time."
Cercone’s victory helped the Gators end the back-and-forth tie on the scoreboard and overcome the doubles loss.
During doubles, Florida tied scores on all courts early on, but Stanford snuffed out UF’s chances, clinching four points against the Gators on Court 1 and three points on Court 2 to claim the doubles point.
Embree and Sofie Oyen could not overcome short slices in the frontcourt from Stanford’s Kristie Ahn, who held serve advantage to win 8-4.
However, Oyen battled back against Ahn and gave her a dose of her own game during singles. Oyen shut out Ahn in two sets with a 6-2, 6-2 result.
Olivia Janowicz also battled back after losing on the doubles court, defeating Stanford’s Lindsey Kostas 6-2, 6-2.
Freshman Danielle Collins was the only player to lose in doubles, falling to No. 33 Ellen Tsay 6-2, 6-2.
The Cardinal’s Nicole Gibbs challenged Embree all over the court, sending balls to both sides and giving her a run to frontcourt with choppy ground balls. The match went into a third set, but Morgan’s win ended play to give the Gators their victory early.
Thornqvist said the team did well at giving Stanford grueling matches, despite the back-and-forth battle on the scoreboard.
"It’s a team of warriors," Thornqvist said.
Cercone added: "No matter what the score is, we’re going to be fighting ‘til the very end."
