The No. 69 MSU women’s tennis team was defeated by the No. 45 Wake Forest University Demon Deacons Saturday, 5-2, in its first meet since the team’s van was robbed before a scheduled meet at DePaul University in Chicago.

The women’s tennis program has recently seen a massive turnaround helmed by head coach Simone Jardim. The Spartans ended a 20-season drought without a winning record in 2014, and are now coming off two straight seasons with winning percentages in the .600s.

This season saw MSU women’s tennis continue its success, earning its first preseason ranking since 2009, and setting the team goal of achieving the program’s first ever NCAA DI Women’s College Tennis Championship berth. The Jan. 30 meet against DePaul was supposed to be a litmus test for these aspirations.

While the team was out to lunch in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago before the DePaul meet, an unknown suspect or suspects broke into the team van and stole more than $7,000 worth of tennis equipment and personal items. They left only a phone charger and an auxiliary input, or AUX cord, untouched.

The meet had to be canceled, as nearly all of the Spartans’ tennis equipment had been stolen. Many players’ personal belongings, including computers, were also taken and needed to be replaced. The expense of paying for the damages did not fall on the student-athletes.

Jardim said, as players’ belongings have now mostly been replaced, her team is attempting to move on from the theft.

“I feel like we’re still coping with it,” Jardim said. “Because, of course, someone’s just invaded your space and broken into your stuff, and somebody has got your stuff out there. But, other than that, we’re just moving forward and focusing on the season.”

Because of the cancellation of the DePaul meet, Saturday’s meet against No. 45 Wake Forest was the Spartans’ first in about three weeks. For freshman Emily Metcalf, it was the first official meet of her MSU career, as she recently recovered from a partial ACL tear she suffered in the fall.

Metcalf was slotted in at the No. 5 singles spot, where she faced Wake Forest’s Samantha Asch, a redshirt senior and former five-star recruit. Though Metcalf lost the first set, she was able to come back for the 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 victory.

Despite earning MSU’s only singles win of the day, Metcalf still did not feel fully recovered.

“I felt really out of shape the whole time,” Metcalf said. “It showed me that I need to work on my conditioning more a little more, but that I can last on the court.”

Jardim said the victory over a formidable opponent would help Metcalf regain her confidence.

The other win on the day for MSU came in the doubles portion of the meet. At both men’s and women’s collegiate tennis meets, the teams start off by playing three single-set doubles matches, each up to six games. These three matches count for a collective single point on the final scoring tally, equivalent to one singles match.

Jardim said one of the Spartans’ goals this year was to win more doubles points, as they were unsatisfied with their performance in doubles last season.

The Spartans’ No. 1 doubles team of Erin Faulkner and Allie Baer got ahead of their Demon Deacon opponents early, while Wake Forest’s No. 2 doubles team also jumped out to an early lead. This made it clear to sophomore Lexi Baylis and her No. 2 doubles partner Emily Meyers their match would decide who won the doubles point.

After going down four games to three, Baylis and Meyers took four out of the last five games to claim a 7-5 match victory that gave MSU the doubles point.

“This was probably the first time we’ve won the doubles point against a good team in a long time,” Baylis said. “So that was really good, there was a lot of energy.”

Jardim cited a number of close singles matches, as well as a similar meet performance against No. 39 Auburn University in January, as encouraging signs that her team could contend for one of the 64 spots in the NCAA DI Women’s College Tennis Championship.

“We’ve been close with all of these top-45 teams, and that’s where we need to be to make NCAAs,” Jardim said. “To me, the next step is to beat a team like that. And this is only going to make us stronger, when the time comes to play a team that is at that level, we’re ready for it.”