In a 5-4 loss to Wheaton, the women’s tennis team fell short of their NCAA national tournament aspirations.
Men’s and women’s tennis coach Jon Miedema was looking for women’s tennis to play their best and stay relaxed for this important tournament.
“We won conference in the fall, then we host the qualifier, so the winner gets the automatic bid for the NCAA tournament, which is in a couple weeks,” Miedema said. “These are teams that we have seen many times. The bigger thing for us is looking to play our best tennis, staying relaxed and confident and just going after it.”
Senior and captain Aileen MacDonald was excited for hosting the home tournament on Friday.
“We haven’t played conference at home in seventeen years, because we haven’t won in seventeen years,” MacDonald said. “I think we have a fire beneath us and a spirit we haven’t seen before.”
And the Vikings brought that fire, fighting as hard as they could for a bid to the NCAA national tournament.
It all came down to sophomore Mollie Magee in her singles match against Wheaton’s Emily Jones. Magee battled in three sets of 4-6, 6-4 and 6-4 and lost  1-2, ending the season.
The Viking season tied for the second best in history.
This was also the culmination of MacDonald’s career as she finished third on Augustana’s combined singles and doubles highest win total in women’s tennis. MacDonald had a record of 151-67. She also finished with the second most double wins and the sixth most single wins. Despite the loss, MacDonald was proud of the team.
“While it wasn’t the end of the season we were looking for, I couldn’t be more proud of how our team competed and left it all on the court,” MacDonald said.