WAUWATOSA, Wis. – Wisconsin Lutheran College swept three doubles matches and earned two singles wins quickly to defeat Lakeland University 5-0 in the first round of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Women's Tennis Tournament Tuesday at Hart Park.
The third-seeded Warriors prevailed and advanced to a semifinal match against No. 2 seed Edgewood College on Friday. Sixth-seeded Lakeland finished its season with a 5-9 dual record.
The Muskies had the lead in one singles match and were competitive in several others but it was academic with WLC (9-9 overall) getting to the needed victories in the first-to-five format. The Warriors built the lead with wins in three doubles matches and then needed just two singles wins to close out the win.
The closest doubles match came at No. 2, where Lutheran's Izzy Hawley and Sky Pope defeated
Olivia Heling (
Fr.-West Bend, Wis.) and
Kassidee Webb (
Fr.-Castroville, Texas) 8-4. The Warriors also won at No. 1 doubles with Katelynn Haskell and Jena Smith besting
Mary Blossom (
Fr.-Farmington Hills, Mich.) and
Sadie Conway (
Jr.-Monroe, Wis.), and Haley Olson and Ali Schmidt defeated the Muskies'
Baylee Babcock (
Jr.-Mauston, Wis.) and
Morgan Erbstoesser (
Sr.-Union, Ill.) 8-2 at No. 3 doubles.
The match closed out at singles when Hawley defeated Webb at No. 3 singles and Schmidt topped Babcock at No. 4 singles. The Muskies had a big lead at No. 6 singles where
Clare Kelnhofer (
So.-Brandon, Wis.) won the first set and was up 6-1, 4-0 on Mary Meghrian. Heling and Blossom also lost very close first sets at No. 1 and No. 2 singles, respectively, including Heling in a tiebreaker to Haskell, and Conway also was down 6-5 in the first set to Pope at No. 5 singles when the match was called.
Lakeland still finished a season that tied for the most overall wins in a season since the 2013 team finished 11-3. The Muskies also qualified for the NACC Tournament for just the third time, and the first time since the 2017-18 season, and the year included the program's first win over Ripon College since 2013 and a first-ever win over Illinois Institute of Technology.
"It was a wonderful season and this team was a joy to coach," said head coach
Pete Barth. "We had a great influx of talented freshmen, our returnees welcomed them and together we had the program's best season in a decade. I'm very proud of them all and am very excited about the future."
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