The Luther women’s tennis team finished off its day with a third straight 8-1 victory, this time defeating Central to complete play on Saturday, Sept. 29 in Decorah, Iowa.  The Norse pulled out a couple tight doubles matches to take a 3-0 lead and never looked back, winning for the tenth time this fall.

Elise Allen and Maggie Helms raced to an (8-1) win over Anna Bowser and Anna Striegel to give Luther an early 1-0 edge.  The other two doubles matches went down to the wire with Hailey Johnson and Jenna Myers winning (8-6) against Ashlyn Huegel and Amanda Kuhn at No. 3 and Cassandra Chalhoub and Lola White-Baer edging Angie Allgood and Megan Davis (9-8 (7-4)) at No. 1 to give the Norse a sweep.

White-Baer and Helms both won (6-0, 6-1) to clinch the meet for Luther.  White-Baer defeated Striegel at No. 3 while Helms bested Kuhn at No. 4.  Allen only lost two games, beating Davis (6-0, 6-2) at No. 2.  DePaolis also wrapped up a (6-4, 6-0) win at No. 6 against Huegel.  Chalhoub fought off a tough first set test from Allgood at No. 1, winning (7-5, 6-1).  Myers rallied back from a one set deficit at No. 5, but finally lost (6-4, 5-7, (10-7)) to Bowser.

Luther wraps up the dual meet portion of its fall season with a 10-1 overall mark.  By winning all three matches on Saturday, the Norse also assured a second place regular season finish in the IIAC with a league mark of 6-1.  Luther will be the No. 2 seed at the six team AQ tournament in the spring, which will be hosted by Coe College.  The Norse will travel to Cedar Rapids on Oct. 5-6 to participate in the IIAC Individual Tournament to complete the fall season.

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