WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The Lewis & Clark College women's tennis team secured the number four seed at this year's Northwest Conference Championship Tournament with a 5-4 win over Pacific University this past Sunday and earned a date with top-seeded Whitman College.
FOLLOW LIVE
Whitman Athletics will provide video and live stats with links available on our website.
THE MATCHUP
#4 Lewis & Clark (7-8, 4-3 NWC) vs. #1 Whitman (11-5, 7-0 NWC), 10:00 a.m. Postseason games are played until the first team wins five matches.
PREVIOUS MEETING
March 11 – Whitman 9, Lewis & Clark 0
POSTSEASON MEETINGS
The Pioneers and the Blues are familiar foes in the NWC tournament. This will be the 13
th meeting of the two teams in the 24 times the tournament has been played. The lone Lewis & Clark win over Whitman was in the 2016 Tournament Championship by a score of 5-2.
SCOUTING THE PIONEERS
Lewis & Clark finished their regular season going 4-2 overall and 3-1 in the NWC after starting the season 3-6, 1-2 NWC. The Pioneers have toyed with eight different duos in NWC doubles play this year. Junior
Arielle Bloom and sophomore
Hayley Kreps have been the doubles team with the most time playing together; they have gone 6-6 overall and 2-4 in NWC play this season.
Kacie Lau has put together a solid resume in singles play this spring. The sophomore has gone 7-1 in dual matches and is 4-0 in NWC play. Lau tied last weekend's dual with Pacific before Kreps won the deciding point to extend the Pioneers' season.
Bloom and fellow junior
Seraphina Vossen are both 5-2 in NWC singles play this season. Bloom has played No. 2 and No. 3 singles, while Vossen has been spending time at the No. 3 and No. 4 spots. Sophomore
Caren Uribe is the only other women's player to play all seven NWC matches in singles, putting together a 3-4 record.
Freshman
Susanna Anand overcame a mid-season injury to go 2-2 in NWC play and has spent most of the season playing No. 1 singles. Kreps has gone 3-3 in NWC singles play, mostly at the no. 5 spot.
SCOUTING THE BLUES
Whitman enters the NWC tournament, having obliterated the competition in NWC play. The Blues' 7-0 conference record tells only part of the story; they have gone 62-1 in doubles and singles matches in the NWC this spring. The only loss was at No. 1 doubles to Cassidy Binder and Sydnie Binder from Pacific on April 13.
Whitman is ranked #29 in the nation for women's tennis. They have three players in the West Region top 25 for singles. Angel Le leads the Blues at #6, followed by Arianna Castellanos Calderon (#20) and Camilla Tarpey-Schwed (#23). Le and Castellanos Calderon are ranked #5 in the West Region as a doubles team, although they have not played in competition together since the middle of March.
WHAT'S NEXT
The winner of Saturday's match will earn a spot in the 2023 NWC Championship Match. The match will be played at noon on Sunday.
