McMINNVILLE, Ore.  Though the battles in each of the nine matches on the courts were plentiful, in the end Whitman's 32nd-ranked women blew past No. 34 Lewis & Clark in the semifinals of the 2018 Northwest Conference Women's Tennis Championship with a 5-1 victory that advances the Blues into Sunday's championship final.

Whitman will take on host and 25th-ranked Linfield College, the early semifinal winner Saturday, in the 11 a.m. tournament final Sunday at the Linfield Tennis Center.

The Blues' first point Saturday against the Pioneers was one of the shortest matches of the afternoon as Kattie Pak and Anastasiya Redkina broke in front, 4-1, of their L&C opponents before closing out a quick 8-2 victory at the No. 3 doubles position.

Nearly as quickly, though, the Pios evened the match with and 8-3 win at 1-doubles.

All-conference performers Mary Hill and Lori Sheng were taking on Natalie Kelly and Glenna Gee-Taylor on the No. 2's court and early on neither was able to break free from the other as the other two doubles matches had proceeded.

Tied at 2-2 Pak and Redkina inched ahead with a game win and held Kelly and Gee-Taylor at arms length until the L&C pair pulled close, trailing just 6-5.

That proved to be the end of the line for the Pios' rally as Pak and Redkina pounded out consecutive game wins to finish off their match, 8-5, and provide Whitman's upcoming singles players with a 2-1 advantage -- needing three more points to claim the match victory.

After a rest while watching the other doubles matches, Pak re-gained her momentum from her earlier match and opened at No. 6 singles with a 6-1 set win. Sheng, too, held her momentum and likewise took her opening set at 3-singles by the same count.

Redkina was trying to recover from a 5-3 deficit in her first set at No. 5, while Hanna Greenberg was trailing 3-0 at 4-singles.

Hill was also trailing early, 2-1 in her match at No. 1, and Andrea Gu dropped her opening set, 6-2, at No. 2.

While Redkina was battling back with four straight games to seize her opening set, 7-5, Greenberg was winning four consecutive games to take a 4-3 lead at No. 4.

Hill was also responding, coming back from that 2-1 score to take the next five games and her opening set, 6-2.

Pak rolled in her second set, never trailing, to a 6-3 win that captured Whitman's third point of the day.

At 4-singles, Greenberg didn't mess around in winning out, 6-2, in her second set to add a fourth point to Whitman's day.

That left Hill at No. 1, Gu at No. 2 and Redkina at No. 5 out on the courts looking for one more win to clinch the match for the Blues.

While Gu was evening her match with a rebounding 6-4 second-set win and Redkina was playing point-for-point in her second set, Hill was inching ahead early, 2-1, in her second stanza against fellow first-team all-conference player Christine Eliazo of the Pioneers.

Hill inched further in front then simply drained the drama from the match by playing even up with Eliazo the rest of the way, eventually taking a 6-4 win and picking up the all-important fifth point to launch her team into the championship match on Sunday.

"It was just an awesome match and I'm so proud of how we fought," said head coach John Hein. "There were a lot of times when it seemed (Lewis & Clark) was getting some momentum, but our players responded every time."

Saturday's triumph sets up a rematch of Whitman's only conference loss during the season. The Wildcats took an 8-1 win on March 3 at this same Linfield Tennis Center.

The winner of Sunday's championship final earns the league's automatic bid into the NCAA Division III national tournament, while the other squad slips into the pool for an at-large bid into the championship.