Kalamazoo, Mich. -- It came down to the very last game, but the Wheaton women's tennis team did enough to earn a solid nonconference road win by taking down the Kalamazoo Hornets, 5-4, on Saturday evening. With this victory, the Thunder win their third straight contest and improve to 14-5 on the season.

The doubles portion of today's match saw a rare 2-1 split in the opposition's favor, as Sarah Backer and Lily Anne Van Ye were the only Thunder combo to win their pairing. Backer and Van Ye overcame their Hornets opponents, 8-4, to earn Wheaton's first tally of the match. The #1 and #2 doubles pairings both resulted in tight 8-6 wins for Kalamazoo.

Audrey Vick claimed a straight-set win for Wheaton in the #2 singles spot, sweeping past her Kalamazoo counterpart, 7-5, 6-3. The reigning CCIW women's tennis student-athlete of the week has won each of her singles pairings in 2022, continuing on her standout campaign in the fall. Bethany Hoogerheide fought off a second-set defeat to top her opponent, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 in the #3 singles pairing. Alexandra Wachs won her third consecutive straight-set singles matchup, swatting her Hornets rival aside, 6-2, 6-4, in their #5 singles test. Fellow rookie Lydia Adams proved to be the match-clinching hero for the Thunder on Saturday. The freshman took the first set of her #6 singles pairing by virtue of a 7-6 tiebreaker, before falling 1-6 in the second frame. But Adams and the Thunder were not to be denied, and she promptly grabbed a 6-3 decision in the final set of the day to push Wheaton over the edge with 5 total points to their name.

After grinding out this hard-fought win, the Thunder can turn their attention to next Friday, when the team will travel to Elkhorn, Wisconsin to face UW-La Crosse in another nonconference clash.