Seniors Ava Lyon and Olivia Gidlow are coming back to Bates with some hardware after capturing the B Flight consolation bracket championship at the New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament, held Friday through Sunday at Amherst and Smith.
The format of the tournament was a team of two played a team of two from another school in a doubles match and two singles matches. Whoever won two (or three) of the matches, moved on to the next round. Lyon (Naples, Fla.) and Gidlow (Cleveland, Ohio) dropped their first match to a team from MIT, before going on a strong run to end the weekend.
It started with a 3-0 sweep of their opponents from Endicott in the consolation quarterfinals. Lyon won a tough three-set battle over Emily Leclerc by a count of 7-6 (7-1), 2-6, 11-9. Meanwhile, Gidlow swept Caroline Sutfliffe in convincing fashion, winning 6-1, 6-0. In the doubles match against Leclerc and Sutfliffe, Gidlow and Lyon prevailed 8-5.
They kept it rolling in the consolation semifinals, taking two of three matches against the Smith College team of Clara Goshgarian and Lili Goshgarian. It didn't start well, with an 8-0 loss in doubles play. But both players delivered terrific performances in singles play, as Lyon rallied to win 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 over Clara Goshgarian and Gidlow held off Lili Goshgarian for a 6-1, 4-6, 10-6 victory.
Lyon and Gidlow advanced to the consolation championship, and were declared the winners when the team they were set to face from Nichols College withdrew from the tournament.
