The New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology played host to the 2009 New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Women's Tennis Championship today at the duPont Tennis Courts. The two-day event continued with semifinal matches as the #6 seed Engineers of MIT faced the #2 Blue of Wellesley College and the #4 Pioneers of Smith College played the #1 Lyons of Wheaton College. After Sunday morning's matches, the Lyons and Blue secured spots in the afternoon's championship, leaving the Engineers and Pioneers with only the opportunity to watch from the bleachers.

In the second semifinal, #6 MIT hoped to repeat their upset victory from Saturday afternoon with a win over #2 Wellesley. A rematch of last year's NEWMAC tournament championship, both teams vied for a chance to face eventual-finalist Wheaton College in this year's title match.

In doubles play, MIT's Leslie Hansen and Anastasia Vishnevetsky avenged their regular season loss to Mahona Siddique and Jacqueline Shen with an 8-2 victory in the #1 position. The Blue responded by picking up both of the other doubles matches to give Wellesley a 2-1 lead.

Shen was the first to pick up a singles win as she beat MIT's Anisa McCree [6-0, 6-0] to put the Blue up 3-1. Vishnevetsky responded for the Engineers overcoming Siddique [6-3, 6-3] to close the lead to 3-2. Just as the MIT fans were getting hopeful, Wellesley closed out the match as Meghan Stubblebine won the #4 match [6-3, 6-4] and Julia Cole won at #6 [6-4, 6-3], giving the Blue a 5-2 victory and a spot in the championship.

Wellesley Advances to NEWMAC Women's Tennis Championship with Win Over MIT