CHAMPIONS AGAIN: Anchorwomen seize back-to-back LEC titles with 4-2 win over UMass Boston

Tim Yean

Managing Editor

(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) – Add a seventh to head coach Adam Spring’s resume.

The first-seed Anchorwomen tennis team, nearly just a year later, gets to call themselves champions once again, beating the third-seed University of Massachusetts Boston, 4-2, to claim back-to-back championship titles in the Little East Conference.

“Everything mattered,” Coach Spring told RIC Athletics in a post-championship interview. “And so today, everything paid off.”

Saturday morning at the LEC Womens Tennis Championship. (Photo by author)

The Thursday preceding the final, RIC squashed another Bay State opponent, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 4-0, to advance to the championship dance for the 11th consecutive season.

Third-year Arianna DeThomas swung a hit to the opposite side of her opponent to seize the championship at second singles, as well as secure the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Award.

“I honestly can’t believe it,” DeThomas said post-championship. “It hasn't set in yet, and I'm so happy I was able to, but I couldn't have done it without the support of my teammates and my coaches.”

The win maintains the program’s now two-year dominance at the LEC mountaintop, following up a flawless 16-0 season in 2025, which saw the fall season conclude with a deja-vu 4-2 win over third-seed UMass Boston.

“They made me so proud coming into today, and they went out and won it themselves,” Spring said. “I can’t be prouder as a coach, and I’m not a good coach without these players; that's for sure.”

RIC had entered the weeklong LEC Tournament with a final-match blemish in-conference against the Beacons in a 4-3 loss on Oct. 18 to finish the regular season 7-1 and share a piece of the Regular Season Championship pie with UMB and Bridgewater State University.

“We learned that UMass Boston is a really good team,” Spring said. “They deserved that win against us; they played great. So we spent this past week just trying to close as many holes as we can in our game, in our strategy.”

Part of Oct. 18’s loss to Boston was an early concession in doubles play that gave the Beacons the cushion to win just half their singles contests. On championship day, it was second doubles, featuring third-years Arianna DeThomas and Emilia Houwers, and third doubles, consisting of fourth-year Ivy Par and second-year Addison Hadlock, that locked up the first point for RIC in 6-2, 6-1 victories respectively.

On singles play, Emilia Houwers set the tone at third singles with a shutout first set, followed up by a strong 6-3 victory in the second set to provide the hosts another point and energize the Anchorwomen push.

“The energy’s there,” Houwers said. “When one girl has that energy, it travels throughout the team.”

The energy did travel, as at sixth singles, Ivy Par, down early in the first set, flew past and came back to take the first set and go all the way to clinch point three for RIC, leaving them one match away from taking it all.

The Beacons would find bursts of victories at first and fifth singles with fourth-year Zainab Patel and first-year Delilah Castro, who respectively downed third-year Haylie Peacock and Addison Hadlock in straight sets to keep the afternoon alive in Providence.

Left in play were DeThomas’s second singles and second-year Faith Owren’s fourth singles, each of whom faced a third set in opposite situations. DeThomas looked to fend off her opponent after a 6-3 second-set concession, while Owren looked to make a comeback after a set one loss with a 6-3 second-set win herself.

Owren pushed to shutout territory in the third set, playing up to a 5-0 score with her advantage, but it was ultimately DeThomas who put in the finishing touches to a warm campus afternoon with her 6-2 third-set clincher over first-year Sofia DaSilva Askew.

The fall may be over for the Anchorwomen, but thanks to Oct. 24’s title win, they’re guaranteed a spot in the spring semester at the NCAA National Tournament, and for at least the Wisconsin native Emilia Houwers, it’s been the vision all along.

“I’m so excited,” Houwers said. “Traveling here from the Midwest, it was my goal from the very beginning. So to be able to do it twice, it’s so incredible.”