“We’ve had a lot of mental training,” said No. 4 freshman Amelia Henley. “There’s been quite a lot of mentally visualizing and having really tough matches, so even though we may have won the last couple of matches the coaches have been really determined in trying to keep up focused and not get too complacent.”

Henley took that training to heart. She took her first two games, but trailing 3-7 in the third game, her momentum, and potentially her match, was slipping away. But then she started going back to her training.

“I think I just reset and focused on what my tactics were and just thought about getting one point at a time, forgetting what had just happened,” Henley said.

She managed to bring it to 9-9 and then score twice in a row to end the match in the minimum number of games.

This mental toughness was pervasive throughout the courts, and it guided Harvard to a healthy victory early in the match as it won the first five matchups. The only mishap came in the last game, as No. 7 junior Sue Ann Yong fell in five games after winning the first two.

She ended up on the other end of the battle, part physical part mental, against Trinity sophomore Jennifer Haley. Knowing that other teams possess the same killer instinct, optimizing their competitiveness will be key as the women go into the playoffs.

“So I think all of our players played really well,” sophomore Kayley Leonard said. “Even though the score was 8-1, I think it could have been a lot closer than it actually was…I think a lot of it came down to our fitness, as well. So we’re just channeling this win as we head into nationals in a few weeks.”

—Staff writer William Quan can be reached at william.quan@thecrimson.com.