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Heading into this weekend’s ITA Indoor Championships, many in the college tennis world were predicting a finals match-up between No. 1-ranked USC, winners of the last three NCAA titles, and No. 2-ranked Virginia, winners of the last four ITA titles.

Well, Ohio State wasn’t having any of that — and UVa will have to wait until May to pay back the Trojans for last spring’s loss in the NCAA finals.

On Sunday night, the Cavaliers' quest for an unprecedented fifth-straight ITA crown came up short as the No. 3 Buckeyes handed them a 4-1 loss in front of a standing-room only crowd at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. The loss ended Virginia’s incredible 94-match home winning streak.

USC defeated Georgia, 4-1, in the other semifinal and will play Ohio State today at noon.

“We certainly would have liked to have another chance to play USC,” said Virginia coach Brian Boland, “but we’ll have to wait now and we’ll see what happens in the NCAAs.”

For the second straight day, Virginia (7-1) dropped the doubles point. All three of the matches were extremely close — two went to tiebreakers — but when the dust settled, Ohio State had taken two of three.

“We need to think long and hard about it — about where we’re at and what we can do differently,” said Boland, when asked about his doubles.

“We’re pretty satisfied at this point with the teams we have. We want to be patient with those teams. We were only one point away here and there and Ohio State has three teams that have spent time in the top 10 or 15 in the country. That’s their strong suit.”

Virginia quickly found itself down 2-0 in the match when sophomore Justin Shane lost 7-6 (7-3), 6-0 at No. 5 singles. As the score indicates, the second set wasn’t very competitive.

“Justin is hitting the ball well, but there are still some areas of his game we need to continue to improve on,” said Boland, who hinted that senior Phillipe Oudshoorn could get a shot in the singles lineup soon.

Senior co-captain Drew Courtney was able to pull UVa to 2-1 with a straight-sets victory at No. 4, but the shocker of the day came when Mitchell Frank, the No. 1 ranked player in the country, lost to unranked Peter Kobelt, 7-5, 7-6 (8-6) at the No. 3 position.

In the second set tiebreaker, Frank appeared to have taken a 4-2 lead when Kobelt’s shot bounced wide. However, the chair umpire overruled Mitchell’s call.

“It was just an awful, awful overrule there, which was just a huge turning point,” Frank said. “I think I would have won that tiebreaker if I had gotten that point.

“I just got some unlucky breaks and he played and served really well.”

Trailing 3-1, Virginia needed to win all three remaining singles matches to pull out the victory, but sophomore Alex Domijan lost to Blaz Rola at No. 2 singles in a close three-setter. The match was tied at three games in the third set when Rola hit a net-chord winner that bounced over Domijan — who was about to hit a volley — and resulted in a break.

Rola then registered two service winners and an ace to close out Domijan and UVa.

Ohio State players stormed the Boar’s Head courts and the celebration was on.

“That’s a celebration you never enjoy seeing,” Boland said. “We’ve been on on the other side of that celebration more often than not.

“But often times when you see those things you tend to get more motivated.”

For their part, Virginia players seemed to take the loss in stride.

“I said before [the tournament] started that our goal is to peak in May,” said senior co-captain Jarmere Jenkins. “The character that we showed tonight — I’m proud of the guys. This is a going to be a good test for us to see how we respond.”

Added Boland: “I told the team that we’re in a great place at this point in the season. You know, it’s disappointing to lose to Ohio State, who played an outstanding match, but I think we’re further along and better off than we have been in other seasons where our record was undefeated at this point.”