Flushing, N.Y. - Led by Most Outstanding Player Polina Movchan, the No. 4 Stony Brook women's tennis team won its first ever America East title on Sunday afternoon, defeating the No. 2 UMBC Retrievers, 4-2, in the finals of the 2012 America East Championships at the USTA National Tennis Center. With the victory, the Seawolves secure the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament selection show will be streamed live on NCAA.com on Tuesday at 5 p.m.
A day after winning in a third set to secure the Seawolves 4-3 victory over 18-time defending champion Boston University, Movchan again delivered the clinching point for the Seawolves as she beat Kim Berghaus, 7-5, in a second set tiebreak at No. 2 singles.
The Seawolves became the lowest seed in America East tournament history to win the title.
UMBC jumped to a 1-0 lead by winning a tightly contest doubles points. The Retrievers won in a tiebreak at No. 1 singles to secure the point.
But senior Salome Mkervalidze (Brewster, N.Y.) won 6-3, 6-4 at No. 6 singles and junior No. 1 Nini Lagvilava (Tbilisi, Georgia) followed with a 6-1, 6-2 victory to give the Seawolves a 2-1 lead.
UMBC won at No. 5 singles to tie the match 2-2 but senior Prerana Appineni (Hyderabad, India) secured a 6-4, 6-0 win at No. 3 singles shortly after to give Stony Brook a 3-2 lead.
Movchan won the first set in a tiebreak and Berghaus then won at 6-5 to send the second set to a tiebreak.
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