SCRANTON, PA – The Juniata women's tennis team and Scranton were tied 4-4 with a ticket to the Landmark Conference Championship match riding on the shoulders of the No. 5 Singles Wednesday afternoon. The entire match lasted nearly four-and-a-half hours with the deciding No. 5 Singles taking over three hours.
Mitsuki Koh (Cupertino, CA / Monta Vista) played three sets against Julia Frattaroli in the No. 4 Singles. Koh fell behind 0-3 in the third set but would rally for six straight games to earn the point for Juniata and tie the match at 4.
The fate of each team was now placed on the result of the No. 5 Singles. Tori Gray (York, PA / Central York) was down after the first set but came back in the second and won the tiebreaker point to keep Juniata alive. Gray took a 5-2 lead in the third set before Lisa-Marie Lanciotti would gain some ground and tie the set at 6. Scranton won the tiebreaker 7-6 to win the match 5-4. The Royals face Elizabethtown on Saturday for their fourth straight Landmark Title.
Juniata went 2-1 in doubles play against the Royals. Koh and Gray won 8-6 while Katharine Conklin (Freehold, NJ / Freehold Township) and Cara Stough (Friendsville, MD / Northern Garrett) fought back from a 2-5 deficit to win 8-5.
In singles competition, the conference foes were pushed to their limits. There would be three ties before Scranton took the match point.
After winning No. 3 Singles, Scranton had tied the match at 2. Samantha Hendricks (McVeytown, PA / Mifflin County) defeated Emily Machado 6-4, 6-1 to give the Eagles the lead back. In No. 2 Singles, Megan Azzalina got away with the win over Rachel Yurchisin (Cleveland, OH / Padua Franciscan). The two were tied at 6 in the first set but Azzalina took the tiebreaker to go up one set. Azzalina took the second set 6-4.
