MISHAWAKA, Ind. — In the Pilots’ first time in the Crossroads League Tournament Championship match, the Bethel Pilots (12-0, 8-0) broke the postseason losing streak to the NAIA 19th-ranked Marian Knights (9-2, 7-1) with a close 4-3 victory that went down to Kenzie Abdelaal‘s singles match.
Abdelaal took Ana Barbosa Fernandez through a marathon of a three-game match and won 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, overcoming the pressure of being the last match standing with a trip to the NAIA National Championship on the line and broke the 33 year streak of Indiana Wesleyan being the conference champion.
Szilvi Ferenczy defeated Ana Lopez Torres 6-2, 6-3 in three singles and Sandy Sharaf overcame a 7-5 first game and swept the second 6-0 to take another singles point.
Szilvi Ferenczy and Kaavya Palani won the one doubles match over Ana Lopez Torres and Michelle Irigoyen 6-2 and Sandy Sharaf and Kenzie Abdelaal won three doubles to secure the Pilot doubles point.
Bethel is the first team in the NAIA National Championship pool that will play from May 13-17 at the Mobile Tennis Center in Mobile, Ala. but stay tuned to bupilots.com for the release of the rest of the 2024-25 schedule.