Recap courtesy of Bates College
LEWISTON, ME - Third-seeded Amherst held off sixth-seeded Tufts 5-4 in the first round of the NESCAC Women's Tennis Championship Friday afternoon at Bates College.
Amherst (12-6) advanced to face No. 2 seed Middlebury (12-3) in a second round match Saturday at 11:30 am. The winner will play the winner between No. 1 Williams and No. 5 Wesleyan in Sunday's championship match.
Amherst took a 2-1 lead through doubles play, with Vicki Ip and Kelsey Chen winning 8-3 at second doubles and Rebecca L. Pol and Avery Wagman winning 8-6 at third doubles. Tufts captured first doubles, as Lauren Louks and Mina Karamercan defeated Sue Ghosh and Sarah Monteagudo 8-3.
Three of the first four singles matches decided went Tufts' way, and the Jumbos tied the match 4-4 after Louks finally put away Ghosh in a very closely contested 6-4, 6-2 decision at #1. Zoe Miller defeated Wagman at #6 6-3, 6-0 for the Jumbos, while Karamercan downed Ip 6-2, 6-3 at second singles. Amherst evened the match on Chen's 7-6 (7-1), 6-0 victory over Tomo Iwasaki at fourth singles.
The match came to an end nearly five hours after it began, at the conclusion of Jackie Calla's 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) victory over Tufts' Conner Calabro at third singles.
Amherst won 6-3 in the teams' regular-season match in Amherst on April 20.
The Jumbos (11-7) will await a possible at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament, which will be announced on Monday at noon.
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