WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The Linfield women's tennis team came up with an impressive road victory on Saturday, beating the Whitman Blues 6-3 to take sole possession of first place in the Northwest Conference.
The Wildcats were fueled to their league-best eighth straight win by taking all three doubles flights, improving to 24-8 in doubles flights on the season.
Before Saturday's win Linfield and Whitman had kept pace with each other for a first-place tie in the conference for much of the season. Linfield's record now stands at 9-2 overall and 5-0 in conference play while going 5-2 on the road. The loss drops the Blues to 10-5 with a 4-1 mark in conference play. It was Whitman's only loss at home this season thus far.
It was the fourth straight win against Whitman for Linfield, and the third straight in Walla Walla.
DOUBLES
The Wildcats immediately gave themselves a huge advantage on the day with a perfect 3-0 performance in doubles play.
The top doubles flight featured Linfield's
Tessa Kern and
Lexie Matsunaga against Whitman's Arianna Castellanos and Erica Mock, with Kern and Matsunaga winning handily, 8-3. It improved Linfield's top pairing to 5-2 on the season as a duo, all played as the No. 1 seeds.
The No. 2 flight also went Linfield's way 8-3 as the senior duo of
Taryn Fujimori and
Maggie Fiocchi beat Irene Tsai and Ilina Jha. It was the fifth straight win for Fujimori and Fiocchi as a team.
Linfield completed their excellent doubles run in a hard-fought third flight between the Wildcats'
Emma Tuttle and
Allena Wong against the Blues' Grace Carter and Camilla Tarpey-Schwed, setting the score in the match at 3-0 heading into singles play.
SINGLES
Singles action proved to be much more competitive than the doubles slate, with the two sides going 3-3 in wins, with three different flights, including the second and third, going to a third set.
Linfield's Kern began the No. 1 flight with a win in the first set but was unable to keep up with Whitman's Castellanos through the second and third, eventually falling 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 to put Whitman on the board with the score at 3-1.
Linfield was able to get the point back in the No. 2 flight when Fujimori owned blanked Mock in the third set to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-0, for Fujimori's fifth straight singles win.
Whitman tightened the match with wins in the third and fourth flight to make the score 4-3, with Jha beating Matsunaga 6-0, 6-2 in the third, snapping a seven-match singles win streak for Matsunaga, and Tarpey-Schwed beating Forester in three sets 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 for just Forester's second loss in singles, snapping an eight-match win streak.
But Linfield was able to seal the victory at 5-3 in the No. 5 flight as Wong won her fourth straight singles contest with a 6-3, 6-1 over Tsai.
The match ended with Fiocchi cruising to her seventh straight singles win with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Mae Thorp, setting the final at 6-3, Linfield.
NEXT
Linfield will look to maintain control of first place in the NWC over the final three matches of the regular season, beginning tomorrow in Spokane at Whitworth (6-6, 4-1) at 10:00. The Wildcats will then host Pacific Lutheran (3-10, 1-4) on Friday, April 15 at 2:00 before hosting Puget Sound (3-4, 1-3) on Saturday at noon on Senior Day.
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