Youth stole the show for the Harvard women’s tennis team on Friday, but it was age and experience which ultimately felled the squad on Saturday as the Crimson won 4-3 and then lost 3-4 in the consolation rounds of the USTA/ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championships in Madison, Wisc.

Coming off the extended Harvard exam period and only one match into the spring season, the No. 12 Crimson faced two top-10 opponents in a tournament that featured many of the nation’s top programs. Harvard came away with mixed results after three demanding days of play.

No. 12 Harvard 4, No. 13 Kentucky 3

On Friday morning, only a day removed from a 6-1 drubbing by No. 4 Georgia in the first round of the main draw, the Crimson set up to serve against No. 13 Kentucky.

Following last Thursday’s 9-8 (3) loss to the Bulldogs—which lost 5-0 to No. 2 Stanford in the tournament finals—the Crimson’s top doubles team of junior co-captains Susanna Lingman and Courtney Bergman had a relatively smooth 8-4 victory over the Wildcats. Harvard’s second doubles duo followed suit with an identical win as Harvard clinched the doubles point.

“We played some pretty strong doubles,” freshman Preethi Mukundan, a singles player, said of her teammates. “Everyone here plays really smart doubles.”

The singles victories did not come quite as easily, though, as the Wildcats put up an even fight. Kentucky took the top two matches—each coming with a first set tiebreak—from Lingman and junior Alexis Martire.

Harvard did manage to secure three of the six singles points on the strength of its underclassmen.

Sophomore Eva Wang, Mukundan and her fellow-freshman Cindy Chu all took their matches in a total of just seven sets. These wins, added to the all-important doubles point, secured the overall 4-3 triumph.

“Our freshman did awesome this week,” Bergman said. “Against Kentucky, the [whole match] came down to [Mukundan’s point], and she won pretty soundly.

“I think everyone, in general, had to step up, but especially the freshman, who [have] basically no match experience, stood out.”

The 4-3 final score would swing in the other direction on Saturday as the team lost a painfully close match to No. 10 UNC.

No. 10 UNC 4, No. 12 Harvard 3

Harvard’s doubles play began solidly, as the Crimson pairs swept their three matches in heart-stopping fashion 9-8 (5), 8-6 and 9-7, respectively. But UNC prevailed in singles play, taking four of the six matches.

Bergman called the day’s event “a really tight match,” adding that “we definitely could have—should have—won the match. We had a couple matches where people won the first set and were up [but ultimately lost].”