Gustavus defeated St. Catherine’s 8-1 to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division IIII Women’s Tennis Team Championship. The Gusties were the top seed in the two-day Central Region tournament, while the Wildcats were the #3 seed.
Gustavus now advances to the NCAA Final Eight which will take place May 12-14 in Memphis, Tennessee. This is the 16th consecutive year that the Gusties have advanced to national finals.
Gustavus opened the St. Kate’s match by sweeping all three doubles matches. Tara Houlihan and Lyndsey Palen defeated Amy Willhite and Linsey Miller 8-4 at #1, Lauren Hom and Kara Smiley defeated Deidre Lindstrom and Shelly Bebler 8-4 at #2 and Marla Menne and Jaime Gaard defeated Briggs Rolfsrud and Jessica Jones 8-2 at #3.
The Gusties continued their strong play in the singles competition winning five of the six matches in straight sets. Tara Houlihan defeated Amy Willhite, 6-1, 6-1 at #1, Lauren Hom defeated Deidre Lindstrom 6-2, 6-3 at #2, Marla Menne defeated Linsey Miller, 6-4, 6-4 at #4, Jaime Gaard defeated Shelly Bebler, 6-1, 6-1 at #5 and Kara Smiley defeated Jessica Jones, 6-0, 6-2 at #6. St. Catherine’s picked up its win at #3 singles where Briggs Rolfsrud defeated Lyndsey Palen, 1-6, 6-2, 6-0.
Gustavus improves its overall record to 28-7. St. Kate’s, which defeated Luther 5-4 in a first round NCAA match on Friday, finishes its season at 17-8.