Bloomington, Ill. -- After rolling past Carthage College in Friday's semifinal round, the Thunder women's tennis team returned to the Evergreen Racquet Club on Saturday afternoon for the CCIW Championship match, where it met a familiar foe, North Central College. Today's conference tournament final marked the fourth occasion in the past five years that the two suburban programs have faced off in the showpiece fixture with a trophy on the line. The Cardinals had won each of those previous encounters and came into this weekend's tournament as the #1 seed, having earned a perfect 8-0 dual match record in conference play last fall. But Wheaton flipped the script on NCC this time and logged a second-consecutive 4-1 victory to claim the program's first CCIW Tournament title since 2019 and 11th overall since the conference introduced an automatic qualifying tournament in 2007. With today's result, Wheaton has earned the CCIW's automatic qualifying bid to next month's NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Championships.
The last time the #2 seeded team won the CCIW Tournament title in women's tennis was the aforementioned Wheaton victory in 2019, and the Thunder lost to the Cardinals at this stage one year ago by a 4-1 margin. But the Orange and Blue ignored these trends and upset the odds with a commanding performance on Saturday.
When the two sides met in the regular season last October, the doubles point made the difference as the Naperville squad edged the Thunder, 4-3, after a 50-50 split of the singles fixtures. Wheaton gave itself an important early platform for success this time around by winning two of the three doubles matchups to secure the first point of the final. Recently paired teammates
Mia Luo and
Carly O'Leary notched a professional 6-3 victory at #3 doubles, before the Cardinals answered back with a 6-4 tilt at the #1 spot. The #2 doubles battle to decide the opening tally was a thriller, and Wheaton's
Janet Kondo and
Ella Malone eventually pulled out a 7-6 [7-5] tiebreak win to steal a march on the reigning champions.
Luo then continued her highly impressive debut campaign with a 16th-consecutive victory at #6 singles, extending her unblemished collegiate record with a 6-3, 6-0 romp that put Wheaton 2-0 up on the scoreboard. Fellow rookie
Sophie Dew gutted out a 7-5 first-set win in her #5 duel and claimed the second frame, 6-3, to put the Thunder on the brink of victory before the Cardinals had even registered a point.
The top seeded team answered back with a 6-3, 7-5 result in the #1 match that cut into Wheaton's lead, but this would not be enough to spark a comeback and extend NCC's tournament dominance. Kondo had fallen in three sets at #4 singles back in October's regular season meeting, but matched up against the same North Central opponent on Saturday, the senior clinched the trophy for her team with a three-set victory of her own. The California native took the first frame, 6-2, and shrugged off a lopsided second-set loss to post a 6-3 win in the decisive third set that ended the match with Wheaton's fourth point of the day.
Wheaton head coach Jane Nelson on Saturday's match and her team's accomplishment:
"The victory today was a total team win. North Central pushed us to our limit. We played well from top to bottom with great senior leadership from our team captains. I am really proud of the whole team for their hard work throughout the season that made this championship win possible."
Following the conclusion of the contest, Wheaton sophomore
Mariclare O'Gorman was presented with the CCIW Elite 26 Award, given to the women's tennis student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average on either of the tournament's two finalist teams. O'Gorman is the third Thunder player to garner this accolade since it was first awarded in 2022, joining Lily Anne Van Ye (2022 & 2023) and
Lydia Adams (2023) as Elite 26 honorees.
The Wheaton team will have time to celebrate and reflect on its achievement before returning the program to the national stage for the first time in seven years. The Thunder know that they will be one of the 49 teams competing for a national championship next month. The 2026 NCAA Division III Championships will be held between May 18 and May 26 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with regional site hosts and opening round dates to be announced. The full details of Wheaton's tournament draw will be released in the coming days.
