ST. LOUIS, MO – For the second year in a row, the Principia Women's Tennis team has won the UMAC South Championship. On Saturday in Forest Park, the Panthers defeated MUW 5-0 in the semifinals and Greenville 5-2 in the finals to clinch the title and the #1 South seed in next weekend's UMAC Tournament.
The Panthers played MUW to begin the day and brought their A game despite a weaker opponent as Principia won all three doubles 8-0. Since the tournament is played to decision with the match ending as soon as one team has won five matches, all the Panthers needed was two singles wins. With all six matches played at once,
Mafe Quintero at #2 and
Veronica Volkart at #5 finished first to clinch the match. Even though four of the matches were unfinished, none of the six Panthers had lost a single game to the Owls.
In the finals, Principia matched up against Greenville who they had swept 9-0 the week before. The Quintero sisters were the first to finish doubles with an 8-2 win at #2. Next at #3 doubles,
Saray Hernandez Cisneross and
Kimbeley Peterson earned an 8-5 win to take a 2-0 lead. Then in a great match at #1 doubles, Greenville was able to reverse the Principia win from last week with an 8-6 victory to earn a big point heading into singles.
At #1 singles,
Bissola Lassissi played power tennis and dominated play as she forced her opponent into errors when she wasn't hitting outright winners. She won 6-2, 6-0 and earned a quick point for Principia. At #2 singles,
Mafe Quintero played a persistent opponent who stayed with her to 5-5 in the first set with both players breaking serves. After being behind 4-2, Quintero went up 6-5 and then broke serve for the first set. From then on, she dominated play and took six of the next seven games for a 6-1 victory to get Principia one match away from the title.
Greenville gained momentum by earning their second point with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Cisneros at #3 singles, as well as splitting the first two sets at both #4 and #6 singles to push those matches into a decisive third. At #5 singles,
Kimbeley Peterson won her first set 6-2, but fell behind 5-2 in the second set as the pressure mounted with Greenville making their comeback. Peterson stepped up in a big way to claw her way back and force a tiebreaker in the second set with some great rallies that she closed out at the net. In the tiebreaker, Peterson played some determined tennis for a 7-2 victory to clinch the championship point. The team rushed onto the court to congratulate her on closing out the match.
When the match was clinched,
Gaby Quintero was up 4-2 in the third at #4 singles, and
Veronica Volkart was up 4-1 in the third at #6 singles. Both played resilient tennis with their leads in the final set after losing one of the first two sets. Greenville's players were great competitors and forced the Principia women to work really hard and stay in the fight to earn the championship. Both teams will advance to the UMAC Final Four Tournament next weekend, and could potentially meet again in the conference finals.
Up Next: In the conference semifinals on Friday at 1:00 pm, Principia will play Northwestern (MN) in a rematch of last spring's conference championship. In that match, Northwestern defeated the Panthers 5-4 in a very close battle, so the Panthers will be looking to exact some revenge. If Principia wins, they will play the winner of Wisconsin-Superior and Greenville with a spot in the NCAA Tournament on the line. The matches will be played at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center in Forest Park, with Forest Lake Tennis Club in Chesterfield being the backup indoor location in case of rain.
