__Tribe takes its 19th CAA Tournament title with 4-0 wins in three consecutive matches__
The women’s tennis team won the CAA Tournament for the 19th time in the 22-year history of conference championships, beating in-conference foe and defending champion Virginia Commonwealth University 4-0 for the title. The Tribe reached the finals after defeating Towson University in the quarterfinals and Georgia State University in the semifinals.
p. The 13th-ranked Tribe met Towson Friday at the Huntington Park Tennis Center in Newport News. The team won the initial two doubles matches, earning the first point of the match, and quickly won three singles matches at the top three positions, making the final score 4-0. The College’s top three singles players earned First Team All-CAA honors prior to the start of the tournament. The victory over Towson improved the Tribe’s record to 18-2.
Saturday, the College faced Georgia State in the semifinals. In similar fashion to the quarterfinals, the Tribe beat the no. 4 seed 4-0. Freshmen Ragini Acharya and Magdalena Bresson won the first doubles match, defeating Georgia’s Mateja Padgousek and Emma Stahl-Johannson 8-0.
p. Sunday’s championship match began at 10 a.m. as temperatures rose above 80 degrees. The Tribe previously defeated the 26th-ranked Rams in the regular season, 4-3, and were anxious to do the same in the tournament. The no. 1-ranked doubles team of Moulton-Levy and Zoricic won at the top doubles spot, 8-2, and Acharya and Bresson won the no. 3 doubles position, 8-5, earning the doubles point victory for the Tribe. Moulton-Levy and Zoricic’s victory improved their record to an impressive 38-2 this season. With the doubles point in possession, the College went on to win three singles matches, coming out on top 4-0. Acharya, ranked no. 120, won her school-record 26th-straight match and sparked the Tribe’s singles play; she defeated no. 121 Olga Borisova 6-1, 6-2. Sophomore Klaudyna Kasztelaniec followed with a 6-4, 6-0 victory, and Bresson clinched the title, winning her match 6-3 6-3.
p. The championship is head coach Kevin Epley’s third since coming to the College four years ago.
p. “VCU is a very good team. If you could have told me at the start of the year that we would beat them 4-0 in CAA Championship, I would have thought you were crazy,” Epley said in statement to TribeAthletics.com. “We are a young team, and it is a testament to them. They showed a lot maturity today.”
p. The victory over the Rams improved the College’s record to 20-2, and marks the 10th time in 13 years that the Tribe has won over 20 matches in a season, and the third time under Epley’s guidance.
p. The College now looks forward to the NCAA Tournament. Seedings and match-ups will be announced May 1 on ESPNEWS at 2:45 p.m.
