HANOVER PARK, Ill. -- The Augustana Vikings women's tennis team defeated the Carthage Firebirds in the quarterfinals of the CCIW Fall Championships on Thursday, winning in a close contest by a score of 5-4.

Augie (5-5) entered the tournament as the No. 5 seed and took on the fourth-seeded Firebirds (5-4), who they fell to earlier on the year on the road 5-4. The Vikings flipped the script this time around, capitalizing on two positions that they were unable to see wins from in their first meeting.

"Lauren played a great second set at No. 4 to clinch the meet in singles and Caitlyn and Lily won a tight doubles match in a tiebreaker at the No. 1 spot," said head coach David DeSimone. "Those two matches were great for us to win as we lost this spots in the regular season."

Augustana secured two of three doubles matches for the early 2-1 lead heading into singles play. Carthage earned the first point of the day at No. 3 doubles, winning 8-4, but Lauren Oda and Grace Rider quickly tied the match with an 8-4 victory of their own at the No. 2 slot. Caitlyn Hanulikova and Lily Shoeck broke the deadlock at No. 1, winning in a tiebreaker to give Augie the advantage early on.

The Firebirds earned two quick wins at No. 5 and  6 singles to regain the lead at 3-2 with four matches still undecided. Hanulikova continued her success in singles this season with another win at the No. 3 position to even the match at 3-3, but Carthage came within one point of clinching the overall victory after the match at No. 1 went in their favor. Michaela Magee's win at No. 2 made it 4-4, putting the deciding point into the hands of No. 4 singles with Oda versus Carthage's Sierra Sonnemaker. Oda took the first set by a close margin at 7-5, but found herself trailing 6-5 late in the second. The junior bounced back to force a tiebreaker, eventually winning it to give the Vikings the 5-4 team victory to advance them into the semifinals.

"We played an excellent match today and won where we needed to," DeSimone added. "It was a tight, competitive match like we thought it would be."

Augie will be back in action tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. when they face off with top-seeded North Central with a trip to the championship on the line. The Cardinals defeated the Vikings earlier this year by a score of 9-0.