WCC Tennis Championships Central
CLAREMONT, Calif. – In a thriller, the Santa Clara women's tennis team roared back from an early 2-0 deficit to bring down Brigham Young University by a score of 4-3 Thursday afternoon during the opening round of the West Coast Conference Championships.
The match came down to the very end, with Daniella Silva playing the role of clincher for the fourth-seeded Broncos. With the contest knotted at 3-3, she dropped the first set 6-3 to Mayci Jones of the No. 5 seed Cougars (6-16), but battled back with a 7-6(3) tiebreak win in the second set and a 6-4 victory in the third to close out the match and get a date with Pepperdine in the semifinals.
"That was just a really, really good college tennis match," said head coach Ben Cabell. "Our girls just competed really hard and we can be proud of them, they deserve a big win like that. It came down to a couple points and we happened to get them today."
The Broncos (13-9) will face No. 8-ranked and No. 1-seeded Pepperdine (19-2) Friday at 2 p.m. at Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
After dropping the doubles point in straight sets on Courts 2 and 3 and falling in the first singles match, Santa Clara found itself trailing 2-0.
Zeina El Tawil got the Broncos on the board with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over the Cougars' Taylah Beckman and Nabila Farah defeated Natella Nabieva 6-3, 7-5 to knot the score at 2-2.
After Madison Clarke lost a three-set match to Nicolette Poulse, senior Chelby Cooke had to win to keep Santa Clara's postseason alive.
"(Cooke), in what could have been the last match of her career, saved four match points to keep us in the match, and ended up winning in a third-set tiebreaker against a girl she'd lost to before, so she was really impressive today," Cabell said. "That was just a great individual effort on her part."
Facing Savannah Ware of BYU, Cooke took the first set 6-4 but faltered in the second, losing 6-3. She tied up the match at 3-3 with a 7-6(5) victory in the third and turned the stage over to Silva to close out the victory.
The winner of the Broncos and Waves match will play the winner of Gonzaga or Saint Mary's in Saturday's finals.
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