LEXINGTON, Va. --- Junior Lauren Long pulled off a gutsy third-set comeback over Nathalie Williams to clinch match point in the final singles match to give the No. 42 Washington and Lee women's tennis team a 4-3 win over No. 21 Swarthmore to open the NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Championship on Saturday.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED:
With matches still ongoing at singles spots No. 3 and No. 6, Long and Williams played into a third set after each player took one of the first two by a 6-4 score. Williams appeared to be on the verge of getting the Garnet (17-5) a team point with a 5-1 lead in the third, but Long continued to battle and won five consecutive games to take a 6-5 lead. This included saving one match point at a 5-4 deficit and winning a deuce point at 5-5 to jump ahead.
 
Williams claimed the next game to send the match into a tiebreak, while the Garnet picked up points from Kathleen Shiffer (3-6, 6-2, 6-3) at No. 3 and Lisa Messier (2-6, 6-4, 7-5) to tie the team score, 3-3. In the tiebreak between Long and Williams, Long moved ahead, 4-1, before ultimately closing out a win for herself and her teammates, 7-3.
 
The Generals (18-5) gained the early advantage in doubles when Long and junior Grace Lorenz downed Williams and Lola Diaz, 6-1, at No. 1. The Garnet evened doubles play when Erin Li and Shiffer edged first-years Allie Murrell and Sarah Donnelly, 7-6 (5), at No. 2, but juniors Annie Jennings and Isabella Custard secured the doubles point with a 7-5 win at No. 3.
 
Jennings (5) and Murrell (2) led the Blue and White to a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard with straight-set wins to open singles. Jennings dropped just four games total while Murrell won both her sets, 6-3. Diaz then got Swarthmore on the board with a three-set win over Donnelly at No. 4, ahead of Shiffer's and Messier's wins to tie the match.
 
NOTEWORTHY POINTS:
Saturday's match featured three ranked wins for W&L individual players. Long and Lorenz, the eighth-ranked doubles duo in the region, downed the No. 10 regionally-ranked doubles team of Williams and Diaz. Long's win over Williams in singles also went down as a ranked win for the 17th-ranked General, as Williams is No. 23 in the nation and sixth in the region. Murrell also picked up a ranked win with Li being the No. 14 player in the region.
 
UP NEXT:
The Generals will host No. 2 Emory on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. in the NCAA Round of 16. It will be the second meeting this season between the teams after a 5-2 Emory win back on February 15.