Ohio State's historic season came to a close sooner than the Buckeyes would have liked as they dropped a hard-fought, heartbreaker to Stanford, ending their run in the NCAA semifinals.
The loss ends the best season in program history. Ohio State won a school-record 32 matches and lost just three matches, tying a school record from last year. The Buckeyes won their second-straight Big Ten regular season and tournament titles and reached the NCAA semifinals for the first time in program history.
The match started out promising for Ohio State as the Buckeyes got on the board first, making relatively short work of the Cardinal to earn the doubles point. Anna Sanford and Sandy Niehaus won 6-2 on court two while Gabriella De Santis and Ferny Angeles Paz won their match 6-1 on court three.
In singles, the nation's top-ranked player Francesca Di Lorenzo cruised to victory — as she's done all season — downing Stanford's top player, Caroline Doyle, in two sets on court one 6-1 and 6-0 to give Ohio State a 2-0 lead.
The other Buckeyes did not have such ease. Stanford notched first-set victories on every other court and ultimately took the next two points to even the match at 2-2 after Sanford lost her match in three sets. Ohio State battled back, though, forcing third sets on court three and four to stay alive.
Angeles Paz dropped her match in the second set, giving Stanford a 3-2 lead, then Kowase won her match with a 7-5 five third-set win to even the score at 3-3. De Santis took her match to a third-set tiebreaker, but was unable to get the win, falling 7-5 in the tiebreaker. The Buckeyes fell to the Cardinal, 4-3, ending their season in the semifinals.
The loss marks the end of four starters' Ohio State careers as Ferny Angeles Paz, Gabriella De Santis, Miho Kowase and Sandy Niehaus are all graduated seniors.
The team season is over for the Ohio State, but Di Lorenzo and Kowase will compete in this week's singles and doubles competitions. Di Lorenzo is the top seed in the singles tournament and she and Kowase earned a spot in the doubles bracket.
