CARY N.C. — If you come for the king, you best not miss. 

This time, the Wolfpack didn’t miss.

Just weeks after suffering a 7-0 loss to UNC-Chapel Hill, No. 5 NC State women’s tennis conquered the undefeated and undisputed rulers of college tennis — the No. 1 Tar Heels — 4-1, making its first-ever ACC Championship title in program history that much sweeter. 

“Today is definitely the best day we could have beaten them — ever in history — because obviously it’s the first time we’ve ever beaten them,” said graduate student Alana Smith. “It’s even sweeter that it’s in the ACC Championship. So yeah, it’s definitely the highlight of my career now.”

The Wolfpack (23-4, 10 ACC) got a rare second chance at the Heels (29-1, 13-0 ACC) and exacted its revenge, crushing UNC 4-1 in arguably its best and most memorable win in program history. In fact, NC State made history in almost every facet of the match on top of bringing some hardware back to Raleigh.

“It was the last team that we had to beat, and I guess if you’re going to win, let’s win it in a match where you get the most payoff,” said head coach Simon Earnshaw. “We were fortunate today, I think we looked like the team we felt like we could be the whole season and we really played to our potential.”

Not only was it the first conference title in history, but it was the first time NC State beat the perennially-excellent Tar Heels since 1999. The Pack knew it would take a herculean effort to down the best team in women’s college tennis, and right from the start, it was clear that NC State was ready to do anything and everything it needed to do to raise the trophy.

“We knew we had to fight,” said junior Sophie Abrams. “We knew it was not going to be easy. We were prepared to stay out here for hours. We didn’t care how long it took, but we just had to keep fighting for each other and thankfully, it worked out.”

That determination was clear from the very beginning of the Championship Sunday match at Cary Tennis Park. The Wolfpack came out firing on all cylinders in doubles, eventually winning the all-important point in what initially looked like a match that would go down to the wire. 

But by the end, the Pack didn’t just win — it crushed the Heels 4-1, making its ACC Championship victory that much more impressive. 

Doubles started with a bang — two of NC State’s three pairs earned convincing wins to earn a 1-0 lead. First, No. 8 junior Amelia Rajecki and fifth-year senior Nell Miller took court two 6-1, and were followed by Abrams’ and junior Abigail Rencheli’s 6-2 win on court three. NC State played possibly its best doubles round of the season, but the red-and-white was just getting started. 

Singles was headlined by No. 12 freshman Diana Shnaider’s win against the No. 1-ranked ITA player in the nation — UNC’s Fiona Crawley. Shnaider, the No. 88 player in the world, didn’t play when the rivals met in early April, so she and her teammates were chomping at the bit to get her on the court against Crawley. 

“The girls were so excited I was playing her,” Shnaider said. “I was like, ‘this girl is solid, she’s first in the college rankings, she’ll play good, I need to play even better to beat her,’ and I wanted to help my team get these points, so I’m going to do as best as I can.” 

They had reason to be excited. Shnaider played one of the biggest roles in the match by downing the No. 1 player in the nation. And like NC State’s overall victory, Shnaider didn’t just win, she thrashed Crawley.

It was one of, if not her best performance all season. Even though each and every point was competitive — giving the droves of rival fans in attendance plenty to cheer about — Shnaider always seemed to come out on top. She simply overpowered Crawley, using her relentless drive to stay in points and hitting deep shots to take them, eventually winning 6-2, 6-1 to put NC State in clinch position.

But before that, No. 29 Rajecki took court three just as convincingly. In fact, she bludgeoned UNC’s No. 21 Carson Tanguilig 6-3, 6-1 for NC State’s first singles win. Once Rajecki and Shnaider bumped the lead up to 3-0, the Wolfpack, and its many fans, smelled blood in the water. 

UNC was able to get one win on the day — a straight-sets win over Smith on court two. However, with NC State winning five out of six first sets, two of which came by way of fiercely-contested tiebreakers, the Heels needed a monumental effort to get back in it. 

While Rencheli and junior Gina Dittmann riled up the crowd with show-stopping tiebreak wins, it was Abrams who delivered the killshot. She was caught in a competitive, back-and-forth match with Carolina’s No. 95 Elizabeth Scotty, but after winning a close first set 7-5, Abrams dominated in her second.

Towards the end, her teammates and fans could feel it coming, and as she served out and won her final point, the team rushed court five and hoisted the Pack’s first-ever ACC Championship trophy.

“In the moment, I was pretty nervous,” Abrams said. “But to be honest, it felt like any other match until the final ball went out and I realized what just happened and I couldn’t stop crying for the next five minutes. So it was pretty intense.” 

Afterwards, it was unsurprisingly all smiles from the Wolfpack and its raving set of fans as the championship feeling really set in.

“We’ve set this goal for the past two years since I’ve been here and I know Simon [Earnshaw] has wanted the same thing ever since he’s gotten here,” Abrams said. “So it’s the culmination of all the work for the past two years that has just come into one moment and I think everybody did a great job.”

The ACC title and legendary win over UNC only add to a historic run by the Wolfpack, a run that hit its stride in NC State’s program-defining 2022 season. Now with the ACC Championship in tow, there’s only one more thing NC State has its sights set on — a national championship. 

The red-and-white are a shoo-in, now more than ever, to be a host for in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament starting in mid-May. After that, Orlando will play host for the final rounds of the championships, where NC State hopes to one-up its quarterfinal appearance from last season. 

The Pack has a challenging road though, and it’ll need to topple quite a few more titans of college tennis to reach its goal. However, when asked about what’s next, Smith only had one thing to say: 

“I mean, we’re getting the first national championship,” Smith said. “See you guys in May.”