MUNCIE, Ind. - Behind Jessica Braun's three-set thriller at the No. 3 singles position, the Ball State women's tennis team won the 2022 Mid-American Conference Tournament championship for the second time in program history Sunday afternoon.
The Cardinals, who also won the league's regular season title, defeated No. 3 seed Toledo, 4-3, at the Cardinal Creek Tennis Center.
In just nine seasons, Ball State head coach Max Norris has guided the program to all four of its MAC regular season championships (2016, 2017, 2021 and 2022), and now both MAC Tournament Championships (2016 and 2022), along with three trips to the NCAA Tournament (2016, 2021 and 2022).
The Cardinals quickly took a 1-0 advantage over the Rockets to start today's contest after winning the doubles point. Livia Lukacs and Jessica Braun took down the Rockets' No. 3 duo of Julia Kuszynski and Christina Fuller, 6-3. After that, Ball State's No. 1 doubles tandem of Amy Kaplan and Hannah Davies clinched the point for Ball State with their 6-4 come-from-behind victory over Toledo's Cassie Alcala and Sloan Teske.
It was a tightly-contested singles competition as Toledo took the first sets on courts one, two and four while Ball State went up on at the No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6 positions. The Rockets earned their first point with a straight-set victory on the top spot. Ball State then regained the lead after Davies defeated Eileen Carney, 6-3, 7-6, at the No. 5 slot.
The Rockets' No. 2 singles player Teske then knotted the match for the second time after beating Mariya Polishchuk, 7-5, in both frames.
Only two matches remained and Kaplan found herself in an unfamiliar situation, falling behind 1-5 in the third set at position No. 4 against Shalini Tallamraju. Tallamraju would end up taking the third set to knot the score at 3-3.
Braun was in a hard-fought, three-set thriller in the final match. After taking the first set over Toledo's No. 3 player Kuszynski, 7-5, she dropped the second frame, 4-6. The third set was then tied 4-4, but some crucial plays at the net allowed Braun to go up, 5-4. Braun then mustered through to go up 40-love, and despite Kuszynski's slight comeback, Braun was able to hold on to her lead to win the match for the Cardinals, 6-4.
Ball State improved to 19-4 and earned the MAC's automatic berth in the NCAA Championships for the third time in program history. The team will learn its first-round opponent Monday, May 2 at 6:30 p.m. ET, which will be streamed live on ncaa.com.
All-Tournament Team
Jessica Braun (Most Valuable Player), Ball State
Livia Lukacs, Ball State
Shalini Tallamraju, Toledo
Sloan Teske, Toledo
Deniz Comlek, Buffalo
Nishitha Saravanan, Miami
