Contact: Jenna McElroy, Sports Info & Social Media Intern, mcelroy@midwestconference.org
 
MADISON, Wis. – After an undefeated conference season, Lake Forest College swept the podium at the 2018 MWC Women’s Tennis Doubles Tournament in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday. Grinnell College finished as the runner-up at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles, while Cornell College claimed second place at the No. 1 flight.
 
Full Results
 
No. 1 Doubles
  The Forester team of Julie Lord and Leeza Bodnar defended their No. 1 doubles title with an 8-0 sweep of Cornell College’s Cami Gricius and Raquel Ruiz. The Lake Forest pair only dropped one game all day on their way to claiming the 2018 Championship. The fourth seeded Meg Witt and Claire Hetzel from St. Norbert College managed to take a game after they won a close match over Ripon 8-6 to reach the semifinals. Gricius and Ruiz duplicated their 8-6 win from the regular season over the Pioneer team of Abby Nielsen and Emma Gaydos. Grinnell advanced to the semifinals with an 8-3 win over Sally Hixson and Sophia Roth from Illinois College.

The Lady Blues bounced back to win their next match to move on to the consolation finals where they met the Ripon team of Brianna Bembenek and Hannah Ryback. The all-freshman duo of Bembenek and Ryback had a nice showing at their first MWC Individual Tournament as they came back from losing a tight 8-6 match to St. Norbert to defeat Monmouth College 8-1 and Illinois College 8-3 to win the consolation final.
 
No. 2 Doubles
  Lake Forest’s Allison Watts and Tyranny Miller cruised to the 2018 MWC No. 2 doubles title. Watts and Miller comfortably won their opening match 8-0 over Kalissa Goertz and Madelyn Deardoff of Illinois College then defeated Monmouth’s Rachel Leiftheit and Natalie Curtis by an 8-2 score. Similar to the No. 1 doubles runner-up, the second place Pioneers had a much tougher semifinal match as Brenda Guan and Isabella Green defeated Janice Elkerton an Abby Nelson of Cornell 8-5.

The Rams beat the Beloit College duo of Emma Hahn and Bailey Ekstrand 8-2 to advance to the finals but the Buccaneers pair battled their way to the consolation final. Unfortunately, their run stopped there as the St. Norbert team of Sofie Koppman and Hannah Swajanen 8-1. The Green Knights had to battle all day to claim the consolation final as they lost a tiebreaker 7-5 to the Scots but bounced back to beat the team from Ripon 8-3.
 
No. 3 Doubles
  Grace Gould and Emma Wang finished off their undefeated season as they edged Grinnell’s Sara Amano and Lily Hamilton 8-6 to give Lake Forest the sweep of the doubles matches. Gould and Wang dropped just one game before the championship match while the Pioneer team lost just three games.

St. Norbert claimed another consolation championship as Erin Vitz and Nicole Pfotenhauer defeated Ripon’s MacKenzie Warner and Carly Wesner 8-1. The Green Knights lost a close first match 8-5 over Lawrence before sweeping Knox to which the consolation final.
 
Next up is the MWC Singles Tournament tomorrow which will start immediately after the conclusion of the awards ceremony. Singles brackets can be found at the tournament page.