The 18th-ranked University of Redlands women's tennis team advanced to the third-place match of the 2014 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship Tournament with split results on Friday.  The Bulldogs dismissed the Chapman University Panthers in the opening round, before coming up short of the upset of No. 5 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges in the semifinal.

Against the Panthers, the Maroon and Gray jumped out to a 2-1 lead with wins at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles.  Sophomore Natalie Etchegaray (Placentia, CA) and junior Julia Pollak (Holland, PA) initiated the scoring with a solid 8-3 performance at No. 2, before the top duo of senior Jessica Ly (Torrance, CA) and junior Ceara Sumida (Hilo, HI) garnered an impressive 8-2 victory.

In singles, freshman Emily Murnin (Salt Lake City, UT) blanked her No. 5 foe, before Ly and Etchegaray collected straight-set wins at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.

With the first-round matches called upon decision, the Bulldogs put this one in the books at 5-1.

Later that afternoon, Redlands battled it out with the Athenas of CMS.  While only earning one of the doubles points, the Bulldogs faced an early deficit and struggled to recover, falling by a score of 3-6.

The No. 2 doubles tandem of Etchegaray and Pollak continued to shine for the Maroon and Gray, capturing a hard-fought 9-7 win.

Murnin and Pollak stepped up with singles victories for the Bulldogs, with Pollak's performance coming in solid fashion at 6-4, 6-3.

Redlands (12-10, 6-4 SCIAC) faces off against sixth-ranked Pomona-Pitzer Colleges in Saturday's third-place showdown at 10 a.m. at the Bisantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont.