AMHERST, Mass. – Alisha Chulani won a pivotal first-set tiebreaker at No. 3 singles and went on to dominate the second set for the clinching point, 7-6, 6-0, as the fifth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team earned a hard-fought 4-2 win over No. 10 Amherst in the NCAA Regional Finals on Sunday morning.  

With the win, CMS improves to 18-3 overall on the season and advances through to nationals, which will be held from May 20-27 on its home courts at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center. It marks the 13th season in a row that the Athenas will have earned a trip to nationals, a streak which dates back to 2011 (with a two-year break for the pandemic), and which has included national titles in 2018, 2022 and 2023, with the 2018 title coming the last time Biszantz hosted.

The doubles point was a tough battle, with all three courts standing at 3-3 at one point. Lindsay Eisenman and Emily Ing were the first to finish at No. 2, taking the final four games to come back from a 3-2 deficit and win 6-3. The first and third courts were both deadlocked 5-5, before Bell Zhou and Ella Brissett came through with the final two games at No. 3 to take a 7-5 win and give CMS a 1-0 lead going into doubles. Chulani and Rebecca Kong had also moved ahead 6-5 on Court 1 when their match was halted.

Eisenman had a dominant performance at No. 1 singles to put the Athenas ahead 2-0, winning 6-1, 6-3, but the other five courts all were tightly-contested. The Mammoths got on the board with a 6-4, 6-3 win at No. 2 singles, but Kong jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second set at No. 4 and held off a comeback attempt from Sophie Diop for a 6-4, 6-4 win to give the Athenas their third point.

Amherst's Tina She earned a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 5 to close the gap to 3-2. Chulani's 7-1 tiebreaker win in the first set, after getting off to a 6-0 lead, gave CMS a one-set lead on four of the six courts. She then rode the momentum of her dominant tiebreaker into the second set for a 7-6, 6-0 win that gave the Athenas the clinch.

The final court was heading to a third set when Chulani clinched, where Celestina Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne took the first set 6-4, before Cody Huang of Amherst won the second set 6-4, and was up early 1-0 in the third.  

CMS will play the winner of the regional final between Middlebury and Johns Hopkins on Tuesday, May 20 to open play at nationals at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center. Start times for the quarterfinals will be 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., with the semifinals being held on May 21 at noon, and the national championship match on Friday, May 23 at 5 p.m.