Box Score
 
BENTONVILLE, Ark.  — The cliché goes "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but it's the size of the fight in the dog." Well that rang ever true for Southern Nazarene late Friday night as SNU's top dog, who stands just over five feet tall, pushed the Crimson Storm into the championship match of the Great American Conference Women's Tennis Championship.
 
The Crimson Storm went 1-5 in one-point matches the entire year, but went 2-0 in one-point matches in the conference tournament as SNU downed top-seeded Southeastern Oklahoma State 5-4 in the semifinals; just a few hours after it knocked off Harding by the same score in the quarterfinals.
 
SNU went back to the well it has gone to the most over the past three years in two-time GAC Player of the Year Masha Andrianova, and for at least one more match it didn't come up dry. The senior, who had dropped just her second match in her career to a GAC opponent just hours before, battled back through a 3-set match to pick up the win.
 
The Crimson Storm got a head start with a 2-1 lead after doubles. Southeastern scored an 8-0 win over Kaitlyn Atkeson and Taylor Sullivan at No. 3 doubles, but SNU won at 1 and 2. Andrianova and Moreno picked up an 8-4 win at No. 1 doubles while Polina Chala and Karina Kotova won 8-5 at No. 2.
 
The Savage Storm picked up three quick points with three straight, complete sweeps in the bottom three singles matches. Kotova at No. 4, Atkeson at No. 5 and Sullivan at No. 6 all lost 6-0, 6-0 in their respective matches. That gave Southeastern a 4-2 lead and it needed just one match to secure a spot in the title game.
 
The Savage Storm never got that final match.
 
Moreno started the come back with a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 3 before Chala won her eighth straight match over a GAC opponent with a 6-2, 7-6 (7-2) sweep at No. 2. That then set the stage for Andrianova and for over the 50th time in her career, he didn't disappoint. Andrianova battled through a tough first set to win 7-5, but dropped the second 6-4 to force a third and final set. The smallest player on the team came through in the biggest way with a 6-4 win in the final set to set the stage for Saturday.
 
The team waiting on the other side of the net for Saturday at 2 p.m. is none other than East Central. SNU Head Coach Charlie Hibbard coached the Tigers for more than 20 years before coming back to her alma matter and leads the Crimson Storm into its first GAC Championship game in its first conference tournament.