WALLA WALLA, Wash.  Gary Ho beat the clock Sunday afternoon at the Whitman Tennis Courts, striking the championship-clinching stroke on Court No. 5 as a pair of teammates were playing out potential match points themselves.

His win at 5-singles pushed Whitman to a 5-1 victory over visiting Lewis & Clark College in the championship match of the 2017 Northwest Conference Men's Tennis Tournament, hosted by the 15th-ranked Blues.

Sunday's triumph assures Whitman (24-6) -- winners of 10 NWC tournaments in a row -- a berth in the NCAA 2017 Division III men's tournament via the league's automatic bid. The loss for No 29 Lewis & Clark (14-5) ends the Pioneers' season.

Ho's clinching point finished a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Lewis & Clark's Brendan Barrows. The winning point by Ho put a bookend on the match for the junior as he and Trevor Fennessy earned the first point of the afternoon for Whitman.

After the Pios' No. 1 doubles pairing picked up the initial point of the match with an 8-6 win over Robert Carter and Jake Hoeger, the tandem of Ho and Fennessy squared the match with their own 8-6 win, coming against Ben DeLuca and Jackson Powell.

Zach Hewlin and Petar Jivkov weren't far behind in their own match, and the Whitman No. 2's soon added a second Whitman point with an 8-5 win over Michael Brewer and Raed Attia.

Leading 2-1 and needing only to reach five team points, the Blues inched closer with Carter's straight set demolition of Powell at 4-singles. Carter trailed early in the first set but eventually got on a roll to rally for a 6-3 win in the first, then finished Powell off with a 6-0 thrashing in the second.

The penultimate point of the match came from Hewlin at No. 1. Even more dominating than Carter, Hewlin took apart Attia to the tune of 6-2 and 6-0, bringing Whitman to within one point of the match win…and the NCAA tournament. Coupled with his doubles victory Hewlin has now accumulated 102 career victories at Whitman.

While Ho was winning his first set over Barrows on Court 5, the battles at Courts 3 and 6 were also shaping up as possible match clinchers for Whitman.

Chase Friedman came back from a 3-2 deficit in his opening set at 3-singles to earn a 6-4 win. And immediately next to Ho was Daniel Foster, who outlasted DeLuca, 7-5, to win the opening set at No. 6 singles.

All three Whitman players rolled toward individual match-clinching points, with Ho and Friedman both reaching the pinnacle at 5-4, and Foster up 5-2 in his match.

Attention from teammates and fans was divided across the three courts and when the understated Ho finished off his match first, he simply flipped off his baseball cap as he strode toward the net for a post game handshake with Barrows -- delaying the crowd's celebration for a few moments.

Rackets eventually dropped, though, and teammates rushed the court to congratulate Ho, and to celebrate another conference crown.

Sunday's 24th victory equals the 24 wins from the 2008-09 squad that went to the NCAA tournament. And of this season's triumphs, the Blues were 6-3 against ranked opponents with each of the losses coming against top 10 teams in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings.

The announcement of the NCAA tournament bracket is two weeks away, but Hewlin and Jivkov are expected to stay active on the competition courts with a visit to Ojai, California, for the Ojai Tennis Tournament, and open tournament that is the largest in the country with over 1,500 participants. Past winners of the Open include Bill Tilden, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean Moffitt (King), and Tracey Austin.