SEWANEE, Tenn. (May 8, 2015) – Led by a thrilling third-set comeback tiebreaking win by freshman Maggie Crumbliss, the No. 12 Sewanee women's tennis team rallied for a 5-4 NCAA Tournament second-round win over No. 11 Washington University (St. Louis), Friday, at the Burton-Guerry Tennis Center.
With the match tied at 4-4, all eyes turned to Court 5 as Crumbliss battled Hanna Newstadt. Despite facing long odds from a 5-2 third-set deficit, Crumbliss kept fighting. After splitting the first two sets at 7-5, Crumbliss fought off six different match points to stay alive in the third. That included at one time her coming back to win a game at 40-love.
She then overcame fatigue to fight back breaking Newstadt's serve multiple times to force a tiebreaker. In the extra frame, Crumbliss would not leave any doubt who would prevail dominating the tiebreak to win the final set and match for Sewanee at 7-2.
Crumbliss's contest was set up by some other outstanding performances. After Washington took two out of three doubles matches, Sewanee tied the contest when Christina Merchant won at No. 3 in straight sets 6-2, 6-3. Classmate Clementina Davila then took her match at No. 4 6-4, 6-1.
The Tigers kept rolling when junior Lindsey Liles roared back in the third set to win her match 6-1, 2-6, 6-2. That was the second point of the day for Liles who teamed up with Bronte Goodhue to win at No. 1 doubles.
At one point in the match, Sewanee led 4-2. However, Washington rallied back with wins by Rebecca Ho at No. 1 and Kaylan Griffith at No. 6.
With the victory, Sewanee will advance to Saturday's Regional Championship match against No. 2 Emory. That contest is set to begin at 12:30 p.m.
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