PORTLAND, Ore. – The challenge was there on both sides of the court Friday afternoon and evening as a pair of nationally-ranked women's tennis teams squared off in a Northwest Conference match. This round went to the home team as host and 29th-ranked Lewis & Clark College rode a sweep of doubles action into a 7-2 victory over visiting and 22nd-ranked Whitman College inside the L&C Tennis Dome.

The Missionaries (2-5, 1-1 NWC) picked up their wins in singles action from Mary Hill and Allie Wallin. Friday's win lifts Lewis & Clark to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the league.

Hill, an unranked first-year playing only her second collegiate match at No. 2 singles, took down the nation's No. 47 singles player in the Pioneers' Aurora Garrison. Hill scratched out a 7-6 opening-set win and had Garrison on the ropes late in the second, but Garrison is ranked (also 12th in the ITA Division III West Region) for a reason and she clawed her way back into the match with a break and finished off the second set with her own 7-6 win. The deciding third set was all Hill's, though. She broke out to a 4-0 lead before trading games until finishing off Garrison for a noteworthy 6-2 set and match victory.

The long match from Hill was actually the second point of the night for Whitman, with the first belonging to Wallin.

In a twist of fate Wallin faced the same player, Kacey Incerpi, at the same 4-singles spot that she battled on Whitman's courts last spring as the deciding point of the Northwest Conference postseason tournament, won by Wallin and Whitman.

Wallin, unlike last spring, dropped the opening set by a 7-6 (2) count. Incerpi pulled even at the tournament in May but on Friday it was Wallin evening the score with a 6-3 win in the second set.

Once again Wallin and Incerpi went into a deciding third set, but Friday's route was much different than last spring's which went into a set tiebreaker. This time around Incerpi raced out to a 3-0 lead, then extended it to 4-1. That fifth game would the be last Incerpi would win, however, as Wallin stormed back to take the set, 6-4, and match for the Missionaries.

Though the team score was a five-point victory for the Pios, the Whitties were within a few service breaks of turning the table in singles. Jenna Dobrin, ranked 50th nationally in singles, took seventh-ranked Summer Garrison to a third set before falling, and first-year Cello Lockwood lost a three-setter to Wiktoria Plawski at 3-singles. The Whitties' Hanna Greenberg also took her opponent, L&C's Christine Eliazo, to a third set before succumbing.

Whitman doubles up Saturday on the road against NWC opponents, facing host Willamette University at the Courthouse Club in Salem, Oregon, for a 9 a.m. match, followed by a 3 p.m. match at the same location against George Fox University.