MORAGA, Calif. – After winning seven of their last nine matches, the Gaels are coming in hot to the West Coast Conference Championship which begins on Friday morning in Santa Monica.
 
Saint Mary's has been dominant this season: they enter the tournament ranked No. 19 in the nation and nine of their last 10 victories have been 5-0 sweeps (13 sweeps overall). SMC's No. 1 duo of seniors Lindsey Knudsen and Sarah Chase have been the Gaels' strongest pair, posting a 19-5 record to this point in the season. Their best month of the season was March where they went 14-1 and defeated the likes of No. 13 Stanford, No. 12 Cal, and No. 13 Loyola Marymount. 
 
SMC enters the two-day tournament as the 3-seed and will face No. 6 seed Portland in the first round at 10:30 a.m. on Friday. In their nine matches this season, Portland is 2-7 with both of their victories coming against Pacific on March 29 (3-2) and March 30 (4-1). They have only played two other WCC opponents this season and they dropped those contests to No. 13 LMU (5-0) and San Francisco (4-1). Should the Gaels defeat the Pilots, they will face the winner of the match between No. 2-seed LMU and No. 7-seed Pacific at 12:00 p.m. For the entire schedule, click here.
 
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