CLAREMONT, Calif. – After a hard-fought regular season culminating with another winning record in conference play, Caltech Women's Tennis faced national No. 1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges in the SCIAC Postseason Tournament at their own Biszantz Family Tennis Center on Thursday afternoon.
The Caltech Beavers fought valiantly and put forth an outstanding effort against the top-seeded Athenas, nearly winning some singles matches before the hosts picked up the deciding fifth set point. The duo of first-years
Anna Tanaka and
Hannah Ramsperger played first doubles against Nikolina Batoshvili and Alisha Chulani of CMS, the top duo in the ITA West Region and national No. 2, as graduating senior
Emily Zhang and junior
Payal Patel played second doubles against the regional No. 5 partnership of Lindsay Eisenman and Ella Brissett. Junior
Anika Arora and sophomore
Anna Szczuka played in the third position and refused to let their CMS rivals prevail unblemished, avoiding match points and winning two late games for an 8-2 set score.
The singles session followed and three Beavers won their initial sets before the match was decided. Ramsperger played on Court 2 and earned a 6-4 first-set win over Brissett, the region's 15th-ranked singles player. Arora earned a 6-4 win over Batoshbili on Court 3 and led 4-1 in the second set on Court 3. Tanaka also grabbed a 6-4 win on Court 6. Ultimately, Chulani, ranked sixth in the region and 19th nationally, prevailed in her #1 Singles rematch against regional No. 18 Zhang, coming less than a month after
Zhang rallied for a tiebreak win at the Beavers' home courts. CMS earned the deciding match point on Court 5 to advance to the SCIAC Championship, by rule leaving the remaining singles matches unfinished.
The Beavers can hold their heads high knowing it was their third consecutive winning SCIAC season and second playoff appearance in the past three years, and strong classes of recruits and rising seniors promise another exciting campaign in 2024-25.
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