SAN DIEGO, Calif. \u2014 Senior Alexandra Ozerets delivered the dramatic match clinching point as Cal Poly women\u2019s tennis earned a thrilling 4-3 victory over No. 6 seed CSUN on Friday to secure a spot in the Big West Championship final for the sixth straight year.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs will now face Blue-Green rival and top seed UC Santa Barbara at 10 a.m. Saturday for the conference tournament title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s semifinal showdown with the Matadors (16-8) was a nail-biter from start to finish and Ozerets came through in the clutch to propel No. 2 seed Cal Poly (13-9) to the championship match.<\/p>\n
With the match knotted up at 3-3, it all came down to court No. 4 in singles. After winning the first set 6-2, Ozerets dropped the second in her match 2-6. But the Mission Viejo, Calif. native wasn\u2019t deterred by her performance in the second as she took the court with a purpose in the third set, dominating her opponent 6-0 to secure the dual win for the Mustangs, who stormed the court to celebrate the thrilling victory.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs opened the dual by dropping the doubles point, forcing them to have to complete a comeback victory to secure a spot in the Big West final. Juniors Candela Aparisi and Natalie Lynch won 6-4 at No. 1 to improve to a team-best 12-6 this season, but Cal Poly fell at both No. 2 and 3.<\/p>\n
In singles, Cal Poly shined as sophomore Jessica MacCallum and Aparisi dismantled their foes in straight sets to give the Mustangs the lead. First, Aparisi won 6-2, 6-2 at No. 3 to level the dual at 1-1, moving to 13-8 on the year. Then, Jessica MacCallum rolled to a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 2, improving to 11-8 on the season to make it 2-1 in favor of the Mustangs.<\/p>\n
After CSUN tied it up at 2-2 with a win in straight sets at No. 5, senior Kennedy Buntrock put the Mustangs on the verge of clinching the dual with an impressive 7-5, 6-4 triumph at No. 1, improving to 12-6 on the season.<\/p>\n
A loss in straight sets at No. 6, set up Ozerets for the dual-clinching victory at No. 4. She moved to 13-9 this year and it was her 57th career dual singles win, the most in program history by five victories.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s Big West Championship will be rematch of last year\u2019s conference tournament final, which saw the Gauchos earn a hard-fought 4-2 victory. After falling 4-0 to UCSB in their regular season finale less than a week ago, the Mustangs will be eyeing revenge when they hit the court.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly is 2-5 all-time in the Big West Championship match, winning it all in both 2003 and 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO, Calif. \u2014 Senior Alexandra Ozerets delivered the dramatic match clinching point as Cal Poly women\u2019s tennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-629450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}