CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. –
Lindsay Eisenman and
Rebecca Kong showcased a dominant doubles performance in the NCAA Division III Semifinals on Sunday at the McCallie School, defeating the tournament's No. 3 seed from Washington University (St. Louis) by a 6-0, 6-0 score, while dropping only 12 points over the course of 12 games.
With the win, CMS moves on to the national championship match tomorrow, which will take place at 9 a.m. Pacific (12 p.m. local time).
Eisenman and Kong ended their quarterfinal victory on Saturday against Case Western by winning the last four games in a row at love, taking 16 straight points to come back from 5-3 down in the second to win 6-3, 7-5.
On Sunday, they faced off against the tournament's top seed, Eleanor Archer and Caitlin Bui of WashU, and picked right up where they left off after the Case Western win. Eisenman and Kong won the first three games at love against WashU, and then started the fourth one at 30-0, before finally dropping a point after a remarkable stretch of winning 30 points in a row over two matches, covering seven and a half games.
The consecutive points streak stopped, but the consecutive games streak continued on, as Eisenman and Kong dropped only four points in the entire first set, winning the last game at love as well for a 6-0 win. They then started the second set with two more love games, before the WashU duo was able to force the third game of the second set to a deuce point, but the Athenas held in that one to go up 3-0.
After the Athenas broke at love for a 4-0 lead, WashU appeared ready to get on the scoreboard by taking the first three points on the CMS serve. Down 0-40, though, the Athenas roared back with four straight points to keep the shutout going, and then won the final game of the match up 40-30 to complete a shutout in which they dropped only 12 points in 12 games.
Tomorrow's final will either be against top-seeded Alessandra Sikharulidze and Matia Cristiani of Babson, or unseeded Eliana Hanna and Ally Lin of WashU. Cristiani has been part of the last two doubles national championships with Olivia Soffer, who graduated last year, including defeating the CMS duo of
Alisha Chulani and Nikolina Batoshvili in 2024.
With one more win, Eisenman has a chance to complete the career triple crown of tennis, after winning the NCAA team championship with the Athenas as a first-year in 2023, and then winning the NCAA singles championship as a junior last year. Eisenman and Kong also won the ITA Cup national championship in doubles this fall.
