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Inez Diaz and Allison Torres hugging
Adam Washington
3
Dominican University of Calif. DUC (3-6)
4
Winner Biola University BU-WT (5-4)
Dominican University of Calif. DUC
(3-6)
3
Final
4
Biola University BU-WT
(5-4)
Winner

Match Recap: Women's Tennis | | Brandon Taylor, Assistant Sports Information Director

No Bigger Clincher

Biola Women’s Tennis posts massive comeback wins in doubles and singles to clinch a spot in the PacWest Championships.

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Wednesday's win over the Dominican Penguins was a win that Biola Women's Tennis can plant its flag in. The Eagles didn't play their cleanest and had to battle through the majority of the three and a half hour match.

But Head Coach David Goodman's group can hang their hat on this 4-3 win because they kept fighting and leveraged every ounce of team chemistry and positivity they had to clinch a spot in the PacWest Tennis Championships in Arizona next month. And the win in and of itself shows that this program continues to take massive strides forward since it reverses a 7-2 loss to these same Penguins from a year ago.

"Honestly I don't think we played our best tennis today. We really started off slow at two and three doubles and almost lost it there," said Coach Goodman. "Alli and Ines did a great job fighting their way back into the match and ended up pulling it out. That doubles point ended up being huge."

Unforced errors bugged the Eagles all day and played a factor in Dominican's victories throughout the dual match. But Biola swatted that problem away when it mattered most and buckled down for intense wins.

That toughness made its first appearance in doubles, where Lauren Lee and Esther Lee gave their team its initial boost and stoked their confidence with a 6-1 victory at No. 1 doubles for their fourth win in seven matches as duo. After each woman held serve to build their 2-1, E. Lee/L. Lee won two break points and both held serve again to win four-straight games and take the first doubles decision.

Then Ines Diaz and Allison Torres put it all together at No. 3 shortly after a Dominican win at the No. 2 fixture made No. 3 the rubber match. Diaz/Torres did E. Lee/L. Lee one better by winning five-straight games and breaking serve at 5-4 to put their team up 1-0 headed into singles.

"Doubles was a whirlwind. It looked like we should have lost, but no match is finished until the last point," said Torres. "[Ines] and I did everything right over the last four games and that was a huge win."

After a brief break, the Eagles got off to a good start in singles with Tinisee Kandakai and Ines Diaz taking the first set in each of their matches. Things got tight very quickly thereafter, as the Penguins responded by taking the first set on the other four courts and thereby forced Biola to have to win a three-set match if it wanted the team victory.

Ines Diaz came up huge as the other courts wore on because her straight-set victory at the No. 2 position basically neutralized the Penguins first two singles wins and kept the Eagles still believing they could comeback to win. Diaz earned the first win of her collegiate career at the No. 2 flight by rolling to a 6-2 result in the first set and breaking her opponents serve three times in a row in the second set to take the 7-5 victory.

Diaz' turning point came at 3-4 down when she won the game at deuce and really brought the match's conclusion within reach.

That win subsequently left the Eagles in a 3-2 deficit that slowly felt more comfortable as time went on. Biola lost a close match at No. 3 singles by a 7-5 mark in the third set, but Kandakai and her teammates looked up to the scoreboard to see Torres and Lee both had comfortable second-set wins in their matches to build a ton momentum.

"Singles was a huge battle and seemed like we had some good opportunities but Dominican really fought hard to regain momentum in the match," said Goodman. "So many of the matches today could have gone either way. I'm just super proud of our girls and how hard they competed for this one."

Torres went up 4-0 on court six in almost the blink of an eye with very consistent play and the opportunist winner in the third set that suddenly put all the wind back in the Eagles' sails. In the meantime, Esther Lee won the first three games on the third set at No. 1 and split the next two with Ofelia Lopez Caramena to head into the next change over up 4-1.

By that time E. Lee and Lopez Caramena walked back on court, Torres had taken her match 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, had shaken hands with Nicole Bermudez and jogged with pace to opposite side of the Biola Tennis Center to join the rest of her teammates in cheering on their No. 1.

Lee subsequently won the next game on her opponent's serve and nearly clinched the match at 5-1 had it not been for a series of strong ground-strokes from Lopez Caramena that kept the Penguins alive. But Lee stayed composed and rallied back from 30-15 down in the next game to play clean while her opponent that made a series of unforced error that ended the match. Lee watched the deuce point fall wide right at 5-2 before her teammates let out a massive cheer and came running onto the court to congratulate her.

"This win means that we get to go to Surpise, Arizona and play in the PacWest tournament, which Biola's never done before," said Torres. "I can't stop smiling. This win is just so big. We did it, we did what we needed to do."

The PacWest Championships will be held in Surprise, Arizona from April 17 to 20. Until then, the Eagles still have a number of matches to play and will head to San Diego next to take Point Loma on Saturday afternoon.  
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