When it mattered most, Stanford had the piece it had been missing.

On Krisitie Ahn’s third championship point, she was finally able to put away Texas A&M and bring the national championship back to Stanford after a two-year hiatus.

The previously injury-plagued Ahn dropped her racket and threw her arms into the air right after clinching the 4-3 victory and her teammates mobbed her on court No. 2 of the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex to celebrate Stanford’s seventh national championship under head coach Lele Forood.

“It’s such a cliche, but words can’t even explain this one,” Ahn said. “I’ve been hurt by injuries my first two years, so to play and to clinch made it that much better.”

For the past two NCAA tournaments, the Cardinal had been without the junior, Ahn, with a myriad of injuries but she was finally healthy for the 2013 tournament. Stanford, a No. 12 seed, beat the No. 1, 3, 4 and 5 seeds en route to the title.

Ahn’s victory in three sets was highlighted by the fact that she ended on a six-game winning streak to close out the match. Being down 2-0 in the final set, Ahn earned three break points and five series of deuce to close out the win over Cristina Stancu.

“The score line doesn’t do justice to the match,” Texas A&M head coach Howard Joffe said. “The quality of tennis on that court was very high. … It had the feel that it could change on a point here or a point there.”

Texas A&M quickly found themselves down 3-0 after dropping the doubles point and two singles competitions. A huge momentum builder for the Cardinal was Court 1, where their ace Nicole Gibbs found herself in trouble early on against No. 4 Cristina Sanchez.

The Aggies senior took the first eight games of the match and looked to be in control before Gibbs flipped the switch midway through the second set. Gibbs rattled off six consecutive games to even the sets and never looked back by winning six more in a row to win 0-6, 6-2, 6-0.

“It was her urgency and she found a little more energy,” Forood said. “She came to the conclusion herself that she had to win this match.”

For Gibbs, the title capped off one of the most impressive 12 month periods for a player. In 2012, she captured the singles tournament title as well as the doubles national championship to go along with the team championship in 2013. The Stanford junior was also named to the No. 1 singles spot in the All-Tournament team and the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

The Aggies earned victories at singles Nos. 3, 5 and 6 to even up the score and turn all eyes to Court 2 for the decisive match. The runner-ups led or were tied in all nine matches, including the three doubles competitions.

Stephen can be reached at [email protected] and @steve_bourbon.