WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- The past 12 months had seen unprecedented success for the Lewis & Clark women's tennis team. With an NCAA Championships participant and four All-American nods, Lewis & Clark ascended to No. 29 in the ITA rankings prior the spring season starting on Friday night.
In the opener, Lewis & Clark faced No. 33 Trinity (1-1) in a match-up for nationally-ranked teams, and after falling behind 2-1 following the three doubles matches, the Pioneers took four of six singles matches to win 5-4 at the Bratton Indoor Tennis Center on the Whitman College campus.
With the team score tied at four apiece, senior Claudia Lew, who was one of the Pios three fall All-Americans, defeated Blaire Porter 6-0, 6-2 in the No. 6 singles pairing to clinch the victory.
The singles matches were fairly one-sided, with only one match going more than two sets. The most highly-contested match of the entire dual was Summer and Aurora Garrison's doubles match with Cheyenne Duncan and Caroline Kutach. In the No. 2 entry, the No. 23-ranked Garrisons won a tiebreaker 7-3 to claim the match, 9-8.
"It was a great team win for our women tonight," said head coach Patrick Dreves. "With the match tied 4-4, it came down to one our seniors and Claudia delivered. She played a great match to secure the win for us."
In singles, the Pioneers' bottom three followed the lead of their No. 1 entry, Summer Garrison, who won in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1, over Kutach. Garrison entered the match ranked seventh in the country.
Along with Lew, Wiktoria Plawska won the No. 4 pairing over Gabrielle Roe 7-5, 6-2, while Christine Eliazo won 6-1, 6-2 over Andrea De Leon in the No. 5 match-up.
Ranked 47th in the nation, Aurora Garrison was defeated by No. 46 Marie Lutz, 6-4, 6-3, in the second-highest pairing. Liza Southwick defeated Lewis & Clark's Kacey Incerpi in the No. 3 entry, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2.
The only other pairing to pit ranked opponents together was the top doubles match, as the No. 8 team in the country, Lutz and Southwick, defeated Lew and Eliazo's 14th-ranked team, 8-4. Porter and Roe won over Incerpi and Plawska, 8-5.
Lewis & Clark (1-0) plays one more set against Redlands in Walla Walla on Saturday before returning home to start Northwest Conference play against No. 22 Whitman on Feb. 19.
Other Northwest Conference Scores - Friday
Trinity 5, Whitman 4
Linfield 8, Whitworth 1
