GAMBIER, Ohio -- The Kenyon College women's tennis team concluded its regular-season campaign with an outdoor contest against Carnegie Mellon University. The Owls saved their best for last on their 2023-24 slate, earning their best win of the season and extending the team's winning streak to seven straight. Kenyon, ranked No. 43 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's national Division III standings, knocked off a Carnegie Mellon team ranked No. 9, and the Owls did so expeditiously with a 5-1 victory as the teams played to clinch.

Kenyon finished its regular season with a 12-6 overall record in duals and improved to 7-1 at home at the Jasper Tennis Center. The Owls have been on a roll over their last 10 matchups, going 9-1 and outscoring opponents by a combined 80-7 margin. CMU fell to 11-5 with the loss, and the Tartans replaced the University of Mary Washington and Denison University, both ranked No. 26 at the time, as Kenyon's highest-ranked win this season.

Carnegie Mellon got on the board first with a speedy win in the No. 2 doubles match, but it was all Kenyon from then on. Eleni Lazaridou and Allaire Berl righted the ship and even the score with an 8-5 win in the top doubles bout. The sophomore duo improved to 10-5 overall this season and 9-4 in duals with a sixth straight win, the longest active winning streak of any Kenyon duo. The No. 3 doubles match also ended with an 8-5 score, with Lalasa Nagireddy and Ana Brand coming out on top. The duo's fourth straight win broke the tie and gave the Owls an important 2-1 edge heading into singles play.

Nagireddy and Brand both kept it rolling in their solo matchups, and the duo combined with Eleni Dakos to make up a top-notch bottom of the lineup. Nagireddy, a junior, posted the first finish, winning 6-3, 6-0 in the No. 6 singles match. A day after celebrating her Senior Day, Dakos won 6-4, 6-1 to pull the Owls within a point of clinching the dual. Brand needed just a few extra minutes to become that clinching point as the first-year contributed Kenyon's fifth point with a 6-4, 6-2 victory. 

The teams abandoned the top three singles matches, but all three Owls had positive moments in their matches. Lazaridou won the first set against Sarah Yang in the No. 1 match, a battle between two of the nation's better singles performers. Both Berl and Shadia Amado Aguad faced regionally-ranked Tartans in their singles matches, and the sophomores showed their fighting spirit by battling back for second-set wins after dropping their opening sets.

With their regular season in the book, Kenyon has its sights set on the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament. The Owls enter the postseason as the No. 1 seed after clinching the conference crown yesterday, and Kenyon will be looking to defend last season's NCAC Tournament Championship when they take on the three-day tournament from May 3-5 at The College of Wooster.