Eagles upset Saints for third-straight UMAC women's tennis postseason title
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.---The University of Northwestern-St. Paul women's tennis team proved that a third time really is a charm as the No. 2-seeded team in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Championships won its third-straight tournament title with a 6-3 upset of No. 1-seeded College of St. Scholastica Saturday.
|
Box Score |
Tournament Site |
In the teams' first meeting of the season, the Saints took the win 9-0 easily over the Eagles, but were forced to battle the Eagles for a 6-3 win last Saturday for their 19th regular season UMAC title. However, the Eagles came prepared for the third meeting between the UMAC powerhouses and used several spectacular wins to upset the champion Saints.
The match started out in a surprising way as the Eagles took all three doubles matches by a score of 8-6 to force the Saints to come up with unexpected wins in order to take the match. After starting out with a significant lead at No. 1 doubles, Karen Moe and Jessica Henke found themseleves down 6-5 against the Saints' Jessica Solberg and Madeleine Scanlan. They fought back for the win which allowed the Eagles to go up with a 3-0 lead as opposed to a 2-1 lead.
In singles, Scanlan helped the Saints cut the lead to 3-1 with a 6-1, 6-1 decision over Henke at the No. 2 spot. Then, Brooke Lapinski gave the Eagles a 4-1 lead as she defeated Daniela Rojas at No. 4 singles by a score of 6-4, 6-2.
The Saints got a huge win from Elise Hauer at No. 3 singles to make it 4-2 for the Eagles, but it didn't come easily. Hauer defeated Tina Matetich 6-2 in the first set before Matetich took the win 6-1 in the second. Hauer then won the third-set tiebreaker 10-5 to give the Saints some life.
Reigning UMAC Player of the Week Sarah Coryell battled Emily Knight at No. 5 singles to cut the Eagles' lead to 4-3. Coryell won the first set 6-1, but dropped the second set 6-1 to Knight. Coryell then escaped the third-set with a 10-3 win in the tiebreaker.
The Eagles finally locked up a win when Rachel Bostrom took No. 6 singles in a marathon match against Katelyn Rice. Bostrom took the opener 6-4, but Rice countered back with a 7-6 win thanks to a 8-6 tiebreaker. Bostrom eventually battled back and held on for victory in the tiebreaker with a 10-7 win.
Karen Moe finished up the No. 1 singles win with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Solberg to put the cherry on top of the Eagles' win. With the win, the Eagles improved to 23-6 on the season and the Saints ended a 12-match winning streak to fall to 19-6 on the season. Both teams will wait to see if either qualify for the NCAA postseason field which will be announced Monday.
2016 UMAC Tournament Site