The 2020 ITA Division III National Indoor Team Championships title match came down to the wire Sunday afternoon with the Athenas of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps knocking off the Emory University women's tennis team, 5-4, at the Top Seed Tennis Club in Nicholasville, KY.
The exciting championship match took over four hours and needed all nine matches to determine the outcome. The championship is the Athenas' first in the history of the event and snaps Emory's three-year reign as national indoor champions.
Match point was decided on court two with a three-set match between Emory's Defne Olcay and CMS' Catherine Allen. Allen was the early aggressor, winning the first set 7-5 but Olcay regrouped to force a third set with a 6-3 score in the second. In the final set, Olcay trailed Allen 4-3 but claimed the next two points to go ahead 5-4 and served for the match win. However, Allen broke serve to tie the set at 5-5 before capturing the next two points to earn the set and match win for the Athenas.
The decisive match point was set up based on the outcome on court three with freshman Alexa Goetz earning a three-set win in highly competitive back-and-forth affair against Rebecca Berger. Goetz grabbed the first set by a 6-2 margin before dropping the second set, 7-6, in a tiebreak. She bounced back and held off Berger to win the set 6-4 after jumping out to a 5-2 lead.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps held the early lead in the match after securing two of three doubles points. Emory's lone doubles win came on court three as Goetz and classmate Katelyn Thomas prevailed 8-6 over Tan and Bahsoun. All three doubles matches were decided by the 8-6 margin.
In singles, sophomore Christina Watson led things off with a 7-5, 6-2 victory on court four before sophomore Jessica Fatemi fell in straight sets on court six. Sophomore Emma Cartledge pulled the Eagles even again at 3-3 with her 6-3, 6-2 triumph on court five. Justin Leong edged junior Ysabel Gonzalez-Rico 6-3, 6-3 at first singles to give CMS the lead again at 4-3, shifting all focus back to the three setters on courts two and three.
With the win, No.2 ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps improves to 10-0 overall in the spring while the loss drops the third-ranked Eagles to 4-2. Emory returns to the courts with a home match against Division I Penn State University Thursday afternoon at the WoodPEC before facing No. 7 ranked Carnegie Mellon University on March 10th to kick off the team's spring break trip in Florida.