Women's Tennis (13-2, 6-1) Earns First League Tournament Crown, Qualifies for NCAAs

The Wheaton College women's tennis team, which is ranked 12th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) Northeast poll, won both of its New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament matches on Sunday at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as the top-seeded Lyons downed number-four Smith College, 5-0 in the semifinals before picking up a dramatic 5-4 win in the title match over second-seeded Wellesley College, the five-time defending tournament champion. Wheaton earned its first league tournament title and automatically qualified for May's NCAA Tournament, which the Lyons will attend as a team for the first time.

Juniors Sarah Geocaris (Newport Beach, CA/Sage Hill School) and Catherine Teague (Manchester, NH/Central) are the 11th-ranked doubles team in the region, while Teague is 15th in singles and Geocaris is 22nd. Geocaris completed the fall season with 98 career wins between singles and doubles, while Teague has recorded 92 victories thus far. The duo helped Wheaton break the school mark for wins in a fall season, as the Lyons are within one victory of the record for an entire school year.

Wheaton avenged its lone NEWMAC loss of the season with a 5-0 sweep of Smith. Geocaris and Teague swept their opponent at first doubles, while the tandems of senior Katherine Knies (Purdys, NY/North Salem) and sophomore Allesandra DiOrio (Cumberland, RI/Lincoln School) and junior Ellen Van Faasen (Manchester, MA/Manchester Essex Regional) and sophomore Rosalyn Chesky (South Hadley, MA/Wilbraham & Monson Academy) also earned victories to give the Lyons a 3-0 advantage. In singles, Teague blanked her opponent in the second slot, while Chesky earned a 6-0, 6-2 win at six to clinch Wheaton's team victory and send it into the championship match.

Teague staged her second clutch comeback against Wellesley during singles, capturing her match to break a 4-4 tie between the teams and hand the Lyons their first league tournament crown. After dropping her opening set, Teague knotted her match before trailing 4-2 in the deciding set. However, the junior won the final four games to complete a late rally during a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory. In the Lyons' second finals appearance and first since dropping a 7-2 decision to Wellesley in 1991, Wheaton took a narrow 2-1 lead after doubles against the Blue, which is ranked 20th nationally and sixth in the region. Chesky and Van Faasen won 8-2 at third doubles before Geocaris and Teague rallied from a 5-4 hole for an 8-5 win over a nationally-ranked duo in the top spot. The Lyons pushed ahead 4-2 thanks to straight-set victories from Chesky in the sixth position and Geocaris in the top slot, where she downed a nationally-ranked foe, but the Blue took the next two decisions to set up the dramatic finish.