CLAREMONT, Calif. -
Ananya Sriniketh picked up the clinching win with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 victory at No. 3 singles to give the top-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team a hard-fought 4-3 win over No. 10 Bowdoin on Saturday at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
The Athenas added a 6-1 win over Division II Concordia Irvine as it moves to 9-1 on the season. Bowdoin slips to 3-2 on the year with the loss.
CMS dropped the doubles point, although
Lindsay Eisenman and Celestina Cedillo-Vayson da Pradenne earned a 7-6 win at No. 1 doubles after fighting off three match points to get to a tiebreaker, which they won 7-3.
Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne gave the Athenas their first point in singles with a 6-1, 6-3 win at No. 6.
Rebecca Kong earned a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 2, and Eisenman earned a 6-2, 7-5 win at No. 1, breaking serve at 5-5 and then holding for the win.
However, the Polar Bears earned three-set wins at No. 4 and No. 5 to level the match at 3-3, and it came down to Sriniketh, who won the first set 6-3 and was up 5-2 in the second before Zoe Sun rattled off five games win a row to get the split.
Sriniketh, who had two dramatic three-set wins at the ITA Indoor Championship, including a 6-7, 7-5, 6-3 win over No. 1 WashU to clinch the match in the semifinals, regrouped for the third and was able to pull away for the 6-2 win. She came all the way back from down 40-0 on Sun's serve to take the victory with a forehand winner down the line on deuce point.
In the nightcap against Concordia, CMS got 6-0, 6-0 wins from
Leah Baroudi (No. 4),
Georgia Garrett (No. 5) and
Macy Garwood (No. 6) in singles, with Garrett and Garwood also adding a 6-0 win at No. 2 doubles. Kong and Eisenman won 6-1 at No. 1 doubles, and
Bell Zhou and Sriniketh won 6-4 at No. 3.
Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne picked up her second singles win of the day with a 6-1, 7-5 victory at No. 3, and
Rachel Garton added a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 2 before Concordia won its lone point with a three-set win at No. 1.
CMS will be back in action for a pair of big home matches this week against Amherst on Wednesday and Chicago on Thursday.