April 23, 2016 Box Score
SPOKANE, Wash.--On a festive Senior Day, the Gonzaga women's tennis team celebrated its three seniors by clinching the second seed in the upcoming West Coast Conference Championships with the team's highest-ever finish in the conference standings.
The second seed came via a 4-1 win over Portland, elevating Gonzaga to 6-3 in WCC action. They're a half-game ahead of No. 3 Saint Mary's, who enters the conference tournament with a 5-3-1 mark.
Against Portland Saturday, the Zags won doubles play with a pair of seniors winning their final matches at home. On court three, Sissi Koehler and doubles partner Domonique Garley picked up a 6-2 win, their 19th of the year, in the first doubles match to finish. A couple of minutes later, Melanie Yates ended her home career with a doubles win, taking down Portland's Radina Dimitrova and Tatiana Grigoryan 6-4 with help from Alex Bourguignon. That was Yates and Bourguignon's 10th win of the dual season.
In singles play, Garley gave the Bulldogs another quick point, beating Saroop Dhatt 6-1, 6-1 at No. 6 singles. With the win, her 25th of the year, she broke the program record for singles wins in a season. Sixteen of those have come in dual play, and she entered the match No. 2 in the WCC in overall wins and tied for third in dual victories.
Portland then picked up a win on court No. 1 for the Pilots' only point of the game, but sophomore Alex Bourguignon countered with a win on court four to put the Zags on the brink of a win.
There was a race for the clinching point between senior Samantha Polayes and freshman Graciela Rosas with both marching towards victory at the same time. Polayes won that race, putting the finishing touches on a two-set win over Dimitrova. Despite dropping the first three games of the match, Polayes roared back to take the first set in a tiebreak at 7-6 (3), and she won the second 6-4 to clinch the Senior Day contest. Rosas' match ended in a second-set tiebreak; the score of that playoff frame was 6-6 when the match was left unfinished.
"We knew could clinch second seed coming in, but more importantly we were rewarded for a full season of working hard with a day off on Thursday," said Gonzaga head coach D.J. Gurule. "That bye is pretty significant for us. This tournament will be challenging as a lot of stuff is coming up - finals week, prep week; they're student-athletes - but we're playing well and we're ready to compete against whomever it may be on Friday."
Gonzaga (16-4) now awaits the winner of the No. 4/5 match to begin their bid for a WCC title. That WCC Championships semifinal match will take place Friday, April 29, at Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont, Calif.
