The two losses from Friday and Sunday also marked the team’s first at-home losses of the season, both ending in 4-3.
“We’re still not firing from all cylinders,” coach Jenny Mainz said. “We’ve got to get back on track. There’s nothing good about losing except the lessons that come out of it. We’ve got to have confidence in ourselves.”
Against Kentucky, Alabama was unable to gain momentum right away as it lost the doubles point for the fourth time this season. It was Kentucky’s Aldila Sutjiadi and Mami Adachi who finally defeated doubles pair sophomore Erin Routliffe and junior Maya Jansen for their first loss of the season, 16-1.
“The other team played really well,” Jansen said. “They played into our weaknesses and we didn’t execute when we needed to. We weren’t ready to go from the start of the match.”
On Sunday, Alabama had another long afternoon that ended in an intense loss. This time it was able to secure the doubles point. Once the singles matches started, the momentum started to swing back and forth between Alabama and Vanderbilt.
“It’s really telling when you get a strong start in singles,” senior Emily Zabor said. “It just puts you down when the other team gets the first set – it kind of gives them a boost.”
Although the overall output of the game had already been decided, sophomore Danielle Spielmann still had her match in progress against Vanderbilt’s Astra Sharma.
“Basically they already won and I knew it didn’t matter if I win or lose – we’d already lost – but to me, I wanted to win that match as bad as I did before,” Spielmann said.
Zabor, along with Mainz and Jansen, said she is proud of how Spielmann never let up on the throttle. That match reflected the type of fight that the team now holds as the standard for further matches, she said.
“It was great to watch Spielmann play and fight like she did,” Zabor said.
Alabama has now lost four of its last five matches and stands at 13-6 with three matches to go before the SEC Championships.
