PASADENA, Calif. — The Caltech women's tennis team picked up a key conference win on Wednesday evening as they defeated rival Occidental College, 6-3. The match began on Saturday afternoon before action was suspended due to rain.

Prior to the stoppage in play, junior Payal Patel (Cumming, Ga. / South Forsyth) and first-year Hannah Ramsperger (Zürich / Realgymnasium Rämibühl Zürich) finished up an impressive doubles performance on Court 3, where the duo cruised to a quick 8-2 victory.

Oxy then picked up their first team point from first doubles before rain caused a delay and eventual suspension of play on Court 2, mid-match.

The contest resumed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and with the Tigers securing the victory on second doubles. Caltech answered right back, however, with some dominant singles play, earning wins on five of the six singles courts with all five victories coming in two sets.

Patel secured the team's first singles win on Court 5 as she cruised to a decisive 6-0, 6-3 victory. A few minutes later, junior Anika Arora (Fremont, Calif. / Mission San Jose) wrapped up her strong performance on Court 3 with a commanding 6-2, 6-3 victory.

Moments later, Ramsperger gave Caltech its fourth team point with a dominant 6-1, 6-0 win in the second position.

Sophomore Anna Szczuka (Scotch Plains, N.J. / Scotch-Plains Fanwood) clinched the team victory from Court 4 after winning several noteworthy rallies and ultimately topping her adversary, 6-4, 6-4. Down 3-4 in the first set, Szczuka came up with a massive hold to tie the match at 4-4 before breaking her opponent to go up 5-4 and holding once more to take the set. The standout broke her opponent to open the second set and never trailed as she took the second set and the match.

Senior Emily Zhang (Sharon, Ma. / Sharon) soon added another victory after topping a high-level foe on Court 1. The Beaver — who earned SCIAC Women's Tennis Athlete of the Week honors this past Monday — defeated the No. 13-ranked singles player in the region, 6-4, 6-3.

Head coach Benay Weintraub was quite pleased with the squad's performance in what was the final home match for this year's seniors.

"We've had too many rain delays this season and of course one came on a special Senior Day," said Weintraub. "We still finished the match in strong Caltech Tennis fashion."

"I'm so happy for Emily earning a hard-fought victory today," she said. "The team stepped up and battled and I'm so proud of them. The job isn't complete!"

"Thank you Athena [Kolli], Emily [Zhang], Halle [Holzbauer] and Bea [Avila-Rimer] for your commitment to Caltech Tennis," said Weintraub. "We celebrate this SCIAC win during DiscoTech so I'm extremely excited to welcome our incoming Caltech Tennis Beavers!"

The program will now focus on the group from Cal Lutheran University for an important road clash and the Beavers' final regular season contest of the year. Follow the action online at gocaltech.com/coverage.

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