(Release courtesy of Matt Higgins, MIAC Assistant Executive Director)
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus College women’s tennis team faced one of its toughest stretches last week, with matches against two teams that had only one MIAC loss, combined. However, the Gusties and junior star Michaela Schulz (Elk River, Minn.) rose to the challenge, scoring a pair of impressive 8-1 wins to lock up a MIAC Playoff bid with Schulz going 4-0 combined at No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles. For her performance, the MIAC sports information directors honored Schulz Tuesday with her third MIAC Women’s Tennis Athlete-of-the-Week award of the 2016 season.
Schulz won a pair of dramatic matches to help her squad take down St. Olaf 8-1 Saturday. She came up with a clutch 6-3, 4-6, 10-7, win at No. 1 singles and an 8-5 victory at No. 1 doubles. Then, a day later, she was a 7-5, 6-0, winner at No. 1 singles and an 8-6 winner at No. 1 doubles as Gustavus scored an 8-1 win over defending MIAC Playoff champ St. Thomas in a battle of teams that were unbeaten in MIAC play. Schulz has now won both her singles and doubles matches in five-straight matches to improve to 10-7 in singles play and 13-4 in doubles matches.
Thanks to the two wins, Gustavus improved to 16-6 overall and remained unbeaten in conference play at 7-0. The Gusties punched their ticket to the six-team MIAC Playoffs, and are tied for first place with Carleton (12-3, 7-0 MIAC). This week, Schulz and company hope to build on their 19-match conference regular season winning streak with a trip to Saint Benedict for a MIAC match Saturday at 1 p.m.