CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Wheaton College women's tennis team captured its first outright New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) regular season championship in program history thanks to Tuesday's 7-2 victory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the duPont Tennis Courts.
Ranked 10th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) most recent regional poll, the Lyons not only claimed their first outright league title in the 24 years of belonging to a conference but also went undefeated in league play for the initial time.
Securing the top seed while earning a first-round bye in the upcoming NEWMAC Tournament, Wheaton extended its winning streak to eight matches while raising its overall record to 10-1 and league mark to 7-0. MIT fell to 5-3 and 5-2.
The visitors swept all three doubles matches and won four of six singles contests. Freshmen Lyndsay Cooke (Bakersfield, Calif./Bakersfield Christian) and Madison Hartley (Charlotte, Vt./Rice Memorial) stayed perfect on the season with an 8-2 triumph in the second doubles position.
Senior Ellen Van Faasen (Manchester, Mass./Manchester Essex Regional) and junior Allesandra DiOrio (Cumberland, R.I./Lincoln School) cruised to an 8-3 win in the third slot, while regionally-ranked seniors Sarah Geocaris (Newport Beach, Calif./Sage Hill School) and Catherine Teague (Manchester, N.H./Central) earned a hard-fought 8-5 victory at one.
Cooke and Hartley carried their doubles momentum into singles, with Cooke winning 6-2, 6-2 in the third slot and Hartley emerging victorious by a 6-1, 6-3 count at five.
Geocaris needed a tiebreaker in the opening set at two to win 7-6 before blanking her opponent in the second set. Van Faasen picked up Wheaton's fourth singles win with a 6-3, 6-3 decision at number six.
DiOrio suffered her first loss of the fall with a 3-6, 6-4, 11-13 setback in the fourth slot, while Teague dropped a 6-2, 6-2 decision to freshman Lauren Quisenberry (Corpus Christi, Texas/Gregory-Portland) at one.
Wheaton heads to the western side of the state this weekend to compete at the three-day New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament (NEWITT) starting on Friday.
