CEDARVILLE, Ohio – Cedarville added yet another tournament trophy to the shelves while bringing home the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Women’s Tennis Championship on Saturday by a 5-3 final decision.
The Lady Jackets defended their top-seeded billing and held off a valiant effort from defending conference champion and No. 2 seed Davis & Elkins at the Dayton Center Courts played indoors.
Cedarville has now captured a total of nine G-MAC Championship trophies in the 2014-15 academic year alone, including volleyball, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, women’s basketball, men’s indoor track and field, men’s and women’s outdoor track and field.
After earning the first-round bye and taking care of business in the semifinals against No. 5 Ursuline, Cedarville emerged with two of the three doubles matches and sealed three singles victories.
The turning point of today’s final may have been featured in the No. 1 doubles draw between CU’s Lily Schuler and Courtney Heydt vs. D&E’s Julia Hoehn and Hali Michael.
After Hoehn and Michael were ahead 7-4, the Cedarville pairing reeled off five unanswered games to rally for a critical point in the team standings.
The Lady Jackets and Senators were tied at 1-1 following the results of the No. 3 and No. 2 doubles draws, where the respective teams split.
D&E’s combo of Marlene Ridgway and Rhiana Bruce-Lyle both exited the court first with an 8-4 triumph, but the CU tandem of Maryssa Herbert and Kristen Heydt, pulled one out by the same score shortly after.
Behind the skill of the G-MAC Player of the Year Hoehn and all-conference selection Michael, the Senators earned points in the top two singles bouts in straight sets.
But Cedarville won or was leading singles matchups No. 3-6. It took Herbert three sets to outlast D&E’s Sandra Chindalo while Heydt was able to give the Lady Jackets a 3-1 team lead at the time as the first head-to-head contest to play out.
Elise Perry’s victory in the No. 6 position gave Cedarville a 4-3 edge before Herbert put the icing on the cake. Deanna Whalen was in the process of battling D&E’s Bruce-Lyle as the match went final.
“I’m known to have three sets and be the longest one out there; it was nothing out of the norm for me,” Herbert said. “I knew I had an advantage going into the third set because my opponent was a little tired.”
Cedarville completed the G-MAC Championship with a 15-8 overall record while Davis & Elkins wrapped up at 12-10 overall.