St. Mary's City, Md. – The St. Mary's College of Maryland women's tennis team will be making their seventh straight trip to the Capital Athletic Conference Women's Tennis Championship Tournament semifinals following a 5-0 win over Southern Virginia University in first round action Saturday morning as the postseason match was played to decision at the Somerset Tennis Complex.
2015 CAC Women's Tennis Tournament Bracket
The fourth-seed Seahawks (10-6) will now face the top seed, No. 20 University of Mary Washington (14-6), on Wednesday, April 22nd. The match start time has not been announced yet so please check the Seahawk women's tennis schedule at www.smcmathletics.com for the latest update. Mary Washington earned an 8-1 win over St. Mary's during the regular season on April 15th.
For the second time this season, St. Mary's blanked Southern Virginia (8-9), the No. 5 seed in this year's tournament, and snapped the Knights' six-match win streak. On March 28th, the Seahawks posted a 9-0 win over Southern Virginia. The Knights, a second-year member of the CAC, was making their first appearance in the CAC Tournament in their first year of eligibility to compete in CAC championships.
The Seahawks started the match with a 3-0 lead after sweeping all three doubles matches. Seniors Shannon Ramsey (Dunkirk, Md./Northern) and Emily Stumpfig (Frederick, Md./Gov. Thomas Johnson) began the winning with an 8-3 victory at No. 1 doubles for their team-leading 10th win of the season.
First-year Chelsea English (Clarksville, Md./River Hill) and junior Emily Rost (Gaithersburg, Md./Northwest) then picked up an 8-5 triumph at three before first-year Melissa Barall (Columbia, Md./Wilde Lake) and junior Mollie Johnson (Hagerstown, Md./North Hagerstown) wrapped up the doubles sweep with an 8-6 win at No. 2 doubles.
With the 3-0 lead, St. Mary's needed just to singles wins to claim the match victory. The first to strike was Stumpfig as she garnered a 6-3, 6-3 triumph over first-year Elizabeth Fuchs (Los Altos, Calif./Los Altos) at No. 3 singles. This was Stumpfig's 10th singles win of the season and 48th of her career.
Barall sealed the win for the Seahawks with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over first-year Lindee Christensen (Moroni, Utah/North Sanpete) at No. 2 singles. She is now 17-2 on the season, including a 15-1 mark in dual matches, and just one win away from tying the school's single-season record for singles wins of 18 set by Stumpfig in 2012.
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