The women's tennis team (7-10) lost to Miami 4-3 on Friday and fell 7-0 to No. 62 Marshall on Saturday, its fourth conference loss in a row.
The match against Miami was played at an indoor tennis club in Hamilton, Ohio. Head coach Kathy Bull said when the Cardinals lost the doubles point early it was a big turning point in the match.
"It was obviously more crucial to win that doubles point than what we maybe thought," she said. "Obviously, when you look back on it now it was the deciding point for us."
Bull said the team had a couple of chances to win the point but were not able to capitalize on the opportunities. The No. 3 team of sophomore Kara Sullivan and senior Alyce Zollman won the only doubles match.
In singles action, junior Melissa Roach, sophomore Jill Wieman and senior Alyce Zollman posted victories.
Bull said after the loss in doubles there were still chances for a victory.
"We even felt some of the momentum shift when we got back out on the singles court," she said. "We were real close in a lot of matches.
"It was a pretty hard loss to take 3-4 to Miami. Unfortunately, the Miami curse continues with us."
The last three years the two teams have met Ball State has lost 4-3.
After the loss at Miami the Cardinals traveled to Virginia to face Marshall, where they lost 7-0.
Ball State lost all the doubles matches and lost each of the six singles matches. Roach was the only Cardinal to force a third set in the matches.
"From their standpoint, it was a very impressive display of tennis. They really got together, and they are playing well this time of the year," Bull said. "We needed a pretty big lady luck to get that one to fall our way."
The No. 4, 5 and 6 singles players for Ball State each lost in two sets and none of the games were closer than 6-2. Bull said this showed the depth Marshall possessed.
"They are deep down to their No. 8 singles player," she said. "They have eight true athletes on full rides, so they have a larger pool to draw from. That's more of an indication of how come maybe our top three look like the matches were a little bit closer.
"I haven't seem the No. 5 and 6 tennis players on any team have the strength and power and abilities like Marshall has."
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