On the verge of being the third Bruin to lose a match in a matter of minutes, sophomore Ashley Joelson maintained her composure and kept herself in the match.
With the No. 12 UCLA women’s tennis team tied with No. 8 USC 3-3, the outcome of Joelson’s match would determine the winner of the rivalry.
Joelson led 3-0 in the third set before Dianne Matias reeled off five straight games to take a 5-3 lead, just one game away from clinching the match for the Trojans.
“Right at that moment I knew they were counting on me to finish the match,” Joelson said. “I stepped up as best as I could and it turned out for the best.”
Joelson was able to pull off a three-set win in a tiebreak, clinching the win for the Bruins and officially bringing the Lexus Gauntlet back to Westwood.
Though Joelson was able to fight her way back into the match, there were times of concern from the sidelines as her teammates and coaches saw the momentum shifting into the Trojans’ direction.
“I was a little concerned because it was coming down to the wire,” UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “What was hard to watch was that she had game points to go up 4-2. She was in every game, but she just wasn’t winning them.”
When Joelson found herself in a hole, she looked to her teammates for support in an otherwise hostile environment created by USC fans and the USC band, and understood that they were looking to her for a win.
“I looked over at my teammates and I knew it was all on me,” she said. “I just let the pressure go.”
The Bruins were able to start the day off with a clean sweep in doubles action, an area that had previously been the cause of concern.
With the doubles teams beginning to gel together, UCLA will likely become an even greater threat to other top-ranked teams.
UCLA made sure to carry the momentum into singles as junior Elizabeth Lumpkin captured a straight-set win over Julie Smekodub. From there, though, USC was able to claw its way back into the match with two come-from-behind victories on the top two courts.
Bruin junior Tracy Lin was ahead of Sarah Fansler 6-4, 4-0 before Fansler was able to win five consecutive games and go on to win 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
With a similar situation beginning to brew on Joelson’s court, the thought of the match slipping away may have crossed the Bruins’ minds, but the sophomore made sure not to let her opponent get the decisive sixth game.
“The whole time, Ashley was just very composed,” Sampras Webster said. “She just thrived under the pressure and that’s what you want. You want a player who just loves being in that situation. She didn’t let anything throw her off.”
The win, along with the celebration, is a moment that Joelson will likely never forget.
“It’s a match that I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life,” Joelson said. “There’s no greater feeling that I’ve had in college tennis than that. The team just rushed out there and I’ve never felt better playing tennis than that moment.”