The Georgia Gwinnett College women's tennis team turned a memorable doubles rally into the program's seventh straight NAIA national championship by defeating Keiser University (Florida) 4-1 in Saturday's final match at the Mobile Tennis Center in Mobile, Alabama.
The NAIA national title marks the eighth in program history for the Grizzlies, who completed the spring season with a 21-1 record.
GGC and Keiser were playing in the national title match for the fifth consecutive season.
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And, Keiser, the tournament's top seed, had given the Grizzlies their only loss of the season, 4-3, in the championship match of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's NAIA Indoor Championships on February 5.
This time, No. 2-seeded Georgia Gwinnett College dug down deep – physically and emotionally – to defeat the Seahawks.
The Grizzlies' No. 1 tandem of juniors
Justine Lespes and
Cassidy Mataia won three straight games to tie their match at 4-4. Each team held their serve to remain even at 5-5.
That's when the duo got a key break of serve to take a 6-5 lead. Lespes then served out the match for the 7-5 victory that tied the doubles matches at 1-1 after Keiser was victorious 6-3 on the No. 3 court.
The Lespes-Mataia doubles team won six of its last seven games in the match.
"We battled back from being down 4-1 and then had to hold serve trailing 5-4. We stayed positive out on court and then began to enjoy the moment," said Lespes, with a huge grin after the match.
Another pressure-packed situation came in the No. 2 doubles match as GGC juniors
Eva Siska and
Stephanie Fernandez held a slim 3-2 advantage in the important match.
The 45-minute mark is when the Grizzlies took their first lead of the match, 5-4, after breaking the Seahawks' serve. Fernandez served for the deciding point, giving the team a thrilling 6-4 triumph.
"It was incredible grit and determination to win those doubles matches. The players put their heart and soul into this match, and they believed that they could win," said GGC Head Coach
Hannah Keeling.
Mataia echoed her coach's analysis of the double matches.
"We had a rocky start in doubles. After winning that first game, we just decided to play our game. We were enjoying the moment and could feel the momentum shifting in our favor. We did not want to let up," said the sophomore.
The momentum carried over to strong play by the Grizzlies as well in singles, with the team winning the opening set on five of the six singles matches. They also built early leads in four second sets, even though Keiser had tied the match, 1-1, with a straight-set victory on the No. 1 court.
GGC regained the lead behind a dominant performance from senior
Angel Carney on the No. 5 court. Her serve on match point wasn't returned over the net for a 7-5, 6-2 victory.
"We knew we were going to have a battle today. I just wanted to do my job by playing well at No. 5 singles and getting the win for the team," said Carney.
A few minutes later Mataia used her powerful serve to give the team their third point of the match with a 7-5, 6-2 triumph on the No. 4 court. It was her first NAIA national championship singles match.
That set up the match-clinching point by fifth-year senior
Tereza Koplova. She led the second set 5-1 before Keiser's Ksenija Vujacic won consecutive deuce points to close the gap to 5-3. Koplova regained her composure and withstood a 90-second exchange during the third match point. Vujacic ended up hitting the ball long for the 6-4, 6-3 victory that made the Grizzlies once again champions.
"It has been quite a year and to clinch the national championship on Tereza's point was incredible. We were standing on the side of the court supporting Tereza as she was grinding out that lengthy match-winning point," said Keeling, who captured the NAIA title in her first year leading the GGC's program. "I'm so proud that Tereza got to clinch her last match as a Grizzly ... She was here when I was an assistant (coach). Now, we got to share another championship moment."
Koplova couldn't have written a better script for the entire week at the NAIA Championship tournament in Mobile.
"There's a lot of emotions. We worked really hard all season for this. We played extremely well in this tournament," Koplova said. "We had unbelievable energy and played for one another. It's never easy to keep your emotions in check when you're about to finish a match. I tried to stay calm as best as I could. I believed that I could do it."
