Freshman Brianna Morgan stays composed when the pressure is on.
The Beverly Hills, Calif., native has proved herself in late situations, grabbing her fifth clincher this season in Florida’s 4-0 sweep over Duke in the NCAA Round of 16 match in Urbana, Ill., on Friday.
Morgan’s strength this season has catapulted her to an 18-1 record in her first year with the Gators – and the season is not over yet.
The freshman fell behind at the start of the first, but Morgan snatched Annie Mulholland’s serve in the first set, grabbing a break to up her lead 5-3, and 6-3 to close out the set.
Once the second set began, Morgan used her serve to break down Mulholland and win the first point. Morgan stepped up the intensity, contesting Mulholland’s looks to shut her out at 6-0, sealing Florida’s Sweet 16 victory.
Morgan’s clincher is her 12th straight win and her third in NCAA play.
“It felt great,” Morgan said in a press release. “I had a not-so-easy start at the beginning, and it felt great to be able to come back from that. I was missing a lot of shots that I’d normally make and was getting a little frustrated, but Dave [Balogh] helped me and told me to calm down, and after that I was loose and able to clinch.”
Coach Roland Thornqvist added: “I thought we lost focus at a couple of courts, but obviously our freshman picked up the slack there in the end and came from behind to finish for us, which was nice to see.”
Junior Olivia Janowicz was also in the winner’s column Friday. She was the first off the court in singles with a quick 6-1, 6-2 victory over Nicole Lipp. Janowicz held serve the entire match, pushing Lipp at all sides to wear her down. Janowicz is now 20-2 on the season.
The two finishers helped out the inconsistent play on the other singles courts. Even though the Gators grabbed two more first-set wins, the second sets threw Lauren Embree, Sofie Oyen and Alex Cercone for a loop.
After winning the first at 6-1, Embree trailed Hanna Mar 3-5 at the clincher.
Oyen also won out 6-1 in the first, but dropped four games to Ester Goldfeld, closing her lead to 5-4 when Morgan won the match for Florida.
Cercone was the only Gator to not win in the first set. The junior fell 3-6 to Mary Clayton in the first and led by a point at 3-2 in the second before the clincher.
Although several Gators struggled in singles, doubles proved an easy feat for Florida.
Florida took advantage of Duke’s short-sided roster for an early 1-0 lead going into doubles. With Duke’s roster of five healthy players, the Blue Devils couldn’t fill the sixth-spot vacancy and forfeited a singles match and one doubles match required to win the doubles point.
The top-seeded Gators overcame Duke’s top doubles team to grab the team’s second point of the day.
The eleventh-ranked pairng of Embree and Oyen dominated Duke’s leading doubles team of Clayton and Mar 8-1 for the two-point lead.
Going into the quarterfinals, top-seeded Florida faces eighth-seeded California on Sunday at 1. Cal grabbed a 4-1 decision over ninth-ranked Alabama for its spot in the quarterfinals.
“The courts play slowly, and that’s good for us,” Thornqvist said about the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex. “We can run, we can defend, but we lost our focus at the end of our singles. When it came time to finish a couple of us lost the focus, but I think we’ll be better on Sunday.”
Freshman Brianna Morgan hits a backhand to return a ball during a match against Tennessee on March 17.
