Monday's match against Indiana was a night of comebacks.
Notre Dame jumped out early and never slowed down, blanking the visiting Hoosiers 7-0.
Notre Dame took the early 1-0 lead by sweeping doubles play 3-0. Doubles team Sheeva Parbhu and Ryan Keckley lost its first set to fall behind by one but quickly rallied to a 3-1 lead and finished with an 8-3 win. Senior Barry King and sophomore Brett Helgeson had no trouble defeating Indiana's David Bubenick and Thomas Rickter 8-5. Stephen Bass and Andrew Roth followed with an 8-4 win at third singles.
The Irish came out of doubles play with a 1-0 lead and continued to challenge the Hoosiers in singles play.
"It really helps to open up singles play with the doubles point at hand," Irish coach Bobby Bayliss said.
Bass took a 6-3, 7-6 (1) win at first singles, but had to put in a fight to knock off No. 48 Bubenick. Bass was able to regain composure and win a decisive tiebreaker after having his serve broken at 5-3 in the second set.
Parbhu had an easier time of getting past Dara McLoughlin, and he eventually won 6-3, 6-4. Parbhu fell behind 3-2 in the opening set but bounced back to take three of the final four games of the set enroute to a match victory.
Junior Andrew Roth put in the toughest fight for the Irish at number six singles against Peter Antons. Roth dropped the first set 3-6 but came back to win the second and third sets 6-2, 7-5, respectively.
"In all of those matches we had to overcome some adversity and that's a good thing for us," Bayliss said.
The Irish kept the pressure on after jumping out to the early advantage - an accomplishment Bayliss was especially proud of.
"I think they ability to finish off a pretty tough opponent when we had them down is a great sign for us," Bayliss said. "We've had some trouble in the past when we have a team down putting them away but today we handled that job very well."
The win over the Hoosiers improves Notre Dame's record to 2-1 for the season and 1-0 at home. The Irish will look to stay on the winning streak at home. The team takes on No. 15 Florida State and No. 7 Duke starting Friday at home and will look to walk away 3-0 at home.
"Our goal is to try to be undefeated at home and we have several top-10 teams here that we would have to beat in order to be able to fulfill that goal so I guess it starts this weekend," Bayliss said. "Winning the first one was a good start."
