BEREA, OHIO -- Freshman third singles player Rebecca Mittler (Elyria/ Catholic) won the deciding match as the Baldwin Wallace University women's tennis team defeated rival Otterbein College, 5-4, today (Saturday, May 8, 2010) in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament championship match at the world-renown Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio. The Yellow Jackets have now won three OAC Tournament titles in the past four years.
Mittler, who lost the first set 6-4, came back to beat Otterbein's Megan Asterino 6-4 in the second set and then dominated the final set with a 6-1 victory. With her victory, Mittler improves to 15-9 overall.
BW improves to 18-7 overall with a school-record 15 straight wins and earns the OAC's automatic berth to the 2010 NCAA Division III National Tournament which begins next weekend with regional play. The Cardinals end their season at 18-5 overall.
For the second time this season, the BW and Otterbein match came down to a third-set tie-breaker. The first time, the Yellow Jackets won on April 28 when junior Academic All-OAC player and No.6 player Katy Marshall (Medina/ Senior) scored the deciding point on her birthday.
The Yellow Jackets took a 2-1 lead in doubles as the No.1 duo of junior Caitlyn Pecinovsky (Whitehall/Columbus Bishop Hartley) and Mittler won, 8-6, and the No.2 tandem of junior No.4 singles player Emily Pelosi (Uniontown/ Green) and sophomore No.2 player Jenny Greene (Worthington/ Thomas Worthington) won, 9-8 with a 9-7 tie-breaker.
With their wins, Pecinovsky and Mittler are now 15-12 overall at No.1 and Pelosi and Greene are 13-10 overall at No.2. Despite their loss at third doubles, senior No.5 singles player Andrea Essig (Ashtabula/ Edgewood) and Marshall are 14-10 overall.
In singles play, Pecinovsky opened with a 6-2 and 6-4 win at No. 1 to improve to 15-9 this season and Greene followed with a 6-3 and 6-4 victory at No. 2. to improve to 12-12 overall and to open a 4-1 Yellow Jacket advantage.
Undaunted, Otterbein rallied to tie the score at 4-4 with wins at No. 5, then No. 4 and then No. 6 singles. That set up the three-set win by Mittler and she triumphed, 4-6, 6-4 and 6-1. In addition, Pelosi is 18-5 at No.4, Essig is 10-14 at No.5 and Marshall is 18-7 at No.6.
FOR MORE BW Sports Information, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at kruple@bw.edu or Assistant SID Nick Minerd by phone at 440-826-2780 and e-mail at nminerd@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest BW athletics information at www.bw.edu/athletics and we invite you to join us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bwathletics.
