Here we are again.
For the third year in a row and the sixth time in all, Emory University of Atlanta and Williams College of Williamstown, Mass., are meeting today for the NCAA Division III women's tennis championship.
This time the showdown is in Chattanooga - at 10 a.m. at the Champions Club if it isn't raining, or moved indoors to Baylor School or McCallie. No. 3-ranked Emory beat No. 1 and previously undefeated Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 5-1 in a semifinal Tuesday at McCallie, while No. 4 Williams won the last four singles matches in edging conference rival and No. 2 Middlebury 5-4 at Baylor.
Emory and CMS also will play for the men's championship, scheduled for 2 p.m. Playing late Tuesday night at the local prep schools, second-ranked Emory assured a new champion by defeating 2016 winner Bowdoin 5-2 and third-ranked CMS edged No. 1 Middlebury 5-4.
Williams and Emory have combined to win 15 of the last 16 NCAA women's titles, and each team is coached by a woman who was part of a team championship as a player for the school. Amy Bryant has coached Emory to Division III supremacy in 2003-06, 2014 and last year, and Williams coach Alison Swain is now 47-2 in the postseason with seven national crowns in the last nine years.
After Emory, which earned the nation's No. 1 spot with a 5-4 win over Williams last year in Kalamazoo, Mich., took down the current No. 1 on Tuesday, Bryant said rankings never mean much to her. Her Eagles are 17-6, but only one of their losses was to a Division III team.
In fact, she said, "None of the other matches matter now. If you put too much stock in the past, you can lose out on what's in the moment. We'll be ready for whatever we need to do."
Her No. 1-ranked doubles team, Bridget Harding and Katarina Su, lost 8-5 to the California team's Nicole Tan and Lindsay Brown, but Emory took the other two doubles points with Michelle Satterfield/Daniela Lopez and Paula Castro/Michelle DeMeo and then got singles wins from Harding (also No. 1 in the ITA singles rankings), Su and Castro to clinch the team win. Satterfield and Lopez were leading their unfinished matches.
Asked if this team may be better than last - with Harding's continued ascent, for example - Bryant said, "I think every team is a little bit different. This team has some superior attributes, but that (2016) team had some attributes that were superior, too. What I know is what I have in front of me. I have a great team with a lot of grit and a lot of heart, and they're ready to go."
Williams showed its heart Tuesday as well. After getting only one doubles win, from two-time defending national champions Juli Raventos and Linda Shin, and falling behind 4-1, the Ephs (19-4) got singles wins from Raventos, Shin, Julia Cancio and Mia Gancayco to get past Middlebury (17-5).
Emory's men (21-4) similarly rallied from losses at Nos. 2 and 3 doubles to advance past Bowdoin (22-5). Aman Manji at No. 1, Scott Rubinstein at No. 6 and Adrian Bouchet at No. 3 gave the Eagles a 4-2 edge, and two other matches were in the third sets when Jonathan Jemison at No. 2 pulled out a 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 match-clincher.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (32-3) was in an even deeper hole in the other men's semifinal, losing all three doubles matches before getting singles wins from Nikolai Parido, Glenn Hull, Max Macey, Daniel Park and Alex Brenner. Brenner won two 7-6 tiebreakers and Parodi and Park won in close third sets for the 5-4 team triumph that left top-ranked Middlebury 21-4 for the year.
Emory men's coach John Browning has three national titles as the Eagles' leader, most recently in 2012. They were national finalists also in 2008 and 2009. He, too, was a team champion as a player, but that was with a different school, California-Santa Cruz.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.