Box Score ST. LOUIS, Mo.—Babson College junior Olivia Soffer (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and sophomore Matia Cristiani (San Salvador, El Salvador) defeated senior Nikolina Batoshvilil (Moscow, Russia) and junior Alisha Chulani (Los Altos, Calif.) of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in three sets in the NCAA Division III Doubles final on Monday afternoon at the Dwight Davis Memorial Tennis Center. 

The Beavers' duo outlasted the tournament's top seed 6-1, 6-7 (1-7), 6-4 in the championship match after beating junior Deliala Friedman (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and first-year Lily Dounchis (Naples, Fla.) of Amherst College 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 in the semifinals earlier on Monday to deliver the program's first national title.  The championship is the seventh in department history for Babson, which has previously captured titles in men's soccer (1975, 1979, 1980), men's ice hockey (1984) and men's basketball (2017) in addition to David Weisman's '98 men's tennis singles championship in 1998. 

Soffer and Cristiani, who were making their second consecutive appearance in the NCAA Doubles final, got off to a fantastic start by taking the opening set 6-1. They won deciding points in back-to-back games to forge a 3-1 lead, held serve and then rallied from down 0-30 to record their second break before holding serve to close out the set. 

The fourth-seeded Beavers won the first two games and were a point away from a 3-0 lead in the second before Batoshvili and Chulani responded by winning the next three games to take their first lead of the match. Soffer held serve to make it 3-3 and Cristiani followed up a service break with an ace on game point as Babson went back in front -5-3. 

The Athenas' duo answered back by holding serve before the teams combined to break serve in each of the next three games to force a tiebreaker. Batoshvili and Chulani allowed the Green and White to score just one point on its four serves to force a decisive third set. 

Soffer and Cristiani dropped the first two games on a deciding point at 40-40 and were starting at a 3-0 deficit before rallying from down 15-40 to win back-to-back games. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps went back in front 3-2 but the Beavers responded with a break point of their own and then a second break after Cristiani held serve to build a commanding 5-3 advantage. 

The Athenas recorded their third break of the final set to get within 5-4 only to see Soffer and Cristiani answer with another break of their own by winning four straight points to close out the match. 

The Beavers faced an early 3-1 deficit in their semifinal contest against Friedman and Dounchis before winning 12 of the next 14 points to go in front 4-3. The teams stayed on serve to force a tiebreaker, which was dominated by Soffer and Cristiani, who raced out to a 5-1 lead that they would not relinquish. 

The Mammoths followed up a break by holding serve to go up 4-1 in the second set before Babson won five unanswered games to punch its ticket to the final. 

TOURNAMENT NOTES
•    Soffer and Cristiani finish the season with a record of 32-2 in doubles.  
•    Cristiani owns a single-season school-record 61 wins in singles and doubles and her 109 combined victories over her first two seasons rank second behind only Soffer (140) in Beavers' program history. 
•    Going back to last year's Division III Championships, Soffer and Cristiani have now reached the doubles final in four consecutive major tournaments. In addition to Monday's victory, they claimed the program's first title at the ITA New England Championships back in September and dropped the ITA Cup championship match in October.