Oct. 6, 2008
Men's and women's tennis closed out competition for 2008 at the ITA Regional Championships over the past two weekends, with several Pirates bringing home notable performances.
Southwestern's men's team opened up ITA competition September 26-28 in San Antonio. Following an initial defeat to McMurry's Chris Burmann, freshman Alex Lam rebounded in the consolation series. Taking down four consecutive opponents, Lam faced off against 13th-seeded Daniel Olivares, coming away with the champion's title with set wins of 6-3 and 6-4. Other first-round consolation wins came from sophomore D'Artagnan Bebel and junior Charles Prince.
The women followed a week later in Tyler, bringing home a championship themselves as Allison Noblitt and Lali Satyavada teamed up in the B Draw for doubles. Following a first-round bye, the pair advanced through the bracket to take on second-seeded Wilkins/Wilson of UT-Tyler, scraping by with an 8-6 win.
In singles action, Kelly Finn advanced through two matches to the Round of 16 before falling to UT-Tyler's Lauren Giovannini 6-4, 6-0. Jessica Gaines followed up on her strong opening performance at Temple College by taking down Howard Payne's 15th-seeded Kayla Smith in the first round 0-6, 6-2, 10-3. Mary Pennington, seeded in tenth place, started off with an early first round win but came up unlucky against Brittany Ude of UT-Tyler in the second, dropping out after a 7-6, 7-5 loss.
With fall play now over, the Pirates will rest before resuming practice next year. Competition will begin again at home on February 6 against University of Texas-Dallas.