PHOENIX, Ariz. (April 29, 2022) – In what seemed inevitable since late February, if not early January, the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks will face the Weber State Wildcats for another Big Sky Conference championship Saturday morning in Phoenix.
Before sitting one match from a third straight conference title, the Lumberjacks first needed to get past the Idaho State Bengals in Friday's semifinal at the Phoenix Tennis Center. After a hard-fought doubles point went in favor of the Lumberjacks, a rapid succession of three singles wins gave Northern Arizona 4-0 win against Idaho State.
Just as they did in last season's semifinals, the Lumberjacks split the first two doubles matches of the day and added some drama to their postseason opener.
Taking a 3-0 early on Court 1,
Mimi Bland and
Annabel Davis put together a stretch that included 12 consecutive points against Idaho State's Hana Cho and Lola O'Lideadha. Northern Arizona's top doubles pairing split the final six games with each side holding serve, culminating in a win with Davis at the service line.
"They just crushed it in doubles honestly. They took care of things with huge serves and huge returns," said Lumberjacks head coach
Ewa Bogusz. "They took care of the basics and they dominated the court. They were a lot more aggressive than their opponents and that was the key. They didn't slip even for a second. We just were so solid. That's what Annabel and Mimi bring to doubles and they did it once again."
With doubles even after the Bengals earned a 6-1 victory at No. 3, it came down to
Gina Dittmann and
Ava Neyestani looking to extend their 10-match win streak as a pairing.
After a break on deuce created a 2-0 lead for the Lumberjacks, neither side led by more than a game the rest of the way. Idaho State's Leah Kuruvilla and Sol O'Lideadha evened the score with a break and hold of their own and took a 3-2 advantage with another break point win.
The back-and-forth battle continued with Dittmann holding serve after another break, pushing the Lumberjacks to a 4-3 advantage. From there, each side held serve to set up the tiebreaker. Down 4-3 with Neyestani taking the service line for a pair of points, the Lumberjacks won four straight points to lock up the match, extend the duo's win streak to 11 consecutive matches and send the Lumberjacks to singles with a 1-0 advantage.
"Anything can happen in a tiebreak," Bogusz said, with Dittmann and Neyestani having dropped four straight points entering the tiebreaker. "But I knew what Ava and Gina bring to the table. They played their game, were aggressive and executed. They stayed calm and kept it cool, and the result was great."
While doubles finished with plenty of drama, Northern Arizona came out and took five of six opening sets to take control of the match.
Needing just three wins in singles,
Sofia Markova handed Lola O'Lideadha a 6-1, 6-2 loss at No. 3 to quickly put the Lumberjacks in front 2-0 and earn her first career win in the Big Sky Tournament. With
Laura Duhl doing the same at No. 6, beating Alexandra Arkhipov 6-4, 6-0 for her first ever postseason win, the Lumberjacks stood just one victory away from clinching the victory.
"As a freshman I can see her, especially in the last month or so, she's just improving," Bogusz said of Duhl, who bounced back from a doubles loss with an impressive win against Idaho State's senior. "She is playing every match better and better. I am also excited to see what she is going to do tomorrow."
Split between two sets of three courts, doubles partners Dittmann and Neyestani ended up in a race for the deciding win. While Dittmann beat Cho 6-2 in her first set at No. 1, Neyestani battled against Kuruvilla for a 6-4 win at No. 5. Just moments after Duhl called her match on Court 6, Dittmann finished off her 14th consecutive singles victory 6-2, 6-2 while Neyestani led 6-4, 4-2.
The win extended Northern Arizona's run to nine straight matches since mid-March and stands as the 29th in a row against Idaho State.
Voted to finish first in the Big Sky Conference, the Lumberjacks dropped their first conference match since March 18, 2019, a span of 17 straight matches including the postseason, when they fell 4-3 at Weber State on Feb. 25.
The Wildcats, voted second in the Big Sky with the lone first-place vote not given to the Lumberjacks, swept doubles play with Sicely Ferreira and Megan Davies winning 7-5 at No. 1, Pei-Hsuan Kuo and Ana Morett winning 7-6 at No. 2 and Megan Lombardi and Yuuna Ukita winning 6-2 at No. 3.
Northern Arizona's trio of doubles teams has shifted since the match, with entirely new pairings across the line up set to play on Saturday. Additionally, with Bland missing the match against the Wildcats earlier this season, just one matchup from February will be the same as Dittmann is set to face Davies at No. 1. Neyestani and Duhl earned the other two wins at No. 4 and No. 5.
In last season's Big Sky championship between the two programs, Neyestani beat Davies at No. 4,
Ellie Millard beat Lombardi at No. 2 and Dittmann beat Ukita at No. 1 before
Madi Moore clinched the win at No. 6 against Ferreira. Despite all six players returning for the Wildcats, only Bland's match against Morett at No. 2 will be a rematch from last season.
Saturday's championship match from Phoenix Tennis Center begins at 8 a.m. with live results available here.
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