The Tar Heels have reached the unreachable star.

The No. 1 UNC women’s team outlasted NC State in the national championship Saturday night in Orlando, winning 4-1 to capture the program’s first-ever NCAA team championship.

Carolina’s win also means the Tar Heels simultaneously hold the indoor (ITA) and outdoor (NCAA) team championships, having won the indoor title in February.

UNC won the doubles point with a 6-1 win from Elizabeth Scotty and Carson Tanguilig and a 6-4 victory from Reese Brantmeier and Reilly Tran. But once the singles portion of the match started, it was clear winning the title wouldn’t come easy. The Wolfpack won three first sets and held three set points for another, but Scotty fought back from a 3-6 deficit in a tiebreak to gut out a critical 7-6 win in her first set.

It was shortly after that that NC State earned its only point of the night, as Brantmeier fell in straight sets on Court No. 1. While Brantmeier’s match was winding down, Crawley was in the middle of a second-set comeback, fighting back from down a break of serve to force a tiebreak. Crawley won that tiebreak and thus the match, giving the Tar Heels a 2-1 lead.

Meanwhile, Scotty kept up the momentum from her gutsy tiebreak performance and earned a 6-3 win in the second set, clinching her match and putting the Tar Heels on the brink of a title.

It was Tanguilig who provided the winning moment, coming back from a 4-6 loss in the second set to win 6-3 in the decider, giving the trophy to the Tar Heels.

Women’s tennis is the eighth different Carolina program to win an NCAA team title, joining men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse and field hockey. The title is the 49th overall in school history and 36th by a women’s program. The latter alone is more than any other ACC athletic department has in total. It’s the second women’s NCAA title of the 2022-23 school year, joining field hockey’s 10th championship in team history. This is the first time since 2015-16 that two UNC programs have won NCAA team titles in the same school year.

 

Featured image via NCAA on Twitter

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