LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - In exclusive voting by the head coaches in the league, Alexis Dimanche of Southwestern University has been selected the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Men's Tennis Player-of-the-Year and Billy Porter was named the Men's Tennis Co-Coach of the Year, sharing the honor with Russell McMindes of Trinity. Complete SCAC Release
Dimanche, a sophomore from Mouans-Sartoux, France who earned Newcomer-of-the-Year honors a year ago, advanced to the quarterfinals of the fall ITA in singles. Currently the highest ranked singles player in the league in the West Region for singles (#8), Dimanche has recorded wins this season over several regionally-ranked players, including #7, #9, #17 and #24. He finished the regular season with a 14-5 singles mark and teamed with Grant Gideon to go 11-9 at No. 1 singles and achieve a No. 15 ranking in the West Region. Dimanche earned SCAC Player-of-the-Week honors the final week of the regular season when he helped lead the Pirates to an upset of then No. 14 Trinity. He defeated the Tigers' Wilson Hamilton, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, at the No. 1 line. Dimanche is the first Southwestern player to earn SCAC Men's Tennis POTY honors, and his selection snaps a 10-year run of Trinity student-athletes winning the award.
Dimanche picked up five votes in the Player-of-the-Year balloting. Trinity's Hamilton and his teammate Jace Akai-Okuma each received one vote.
Porter, in his fifth season as the head coach at Southwestern, led the Pirates to another historic season. Southwestern finished with a 13-8 overall mark which included a 5-4 victory over #15 Trinity on April 14, the program's first-ever victory against its conference rival. Porter earned ITA Men's West Region Coach-of-the-Year a year ago as his squad finished the season ranked 36th in the nation, and the Pirates enter the most recent ITA national rankings (April 26) at No. 39. This is his second SCAC Men's Tennis Coach-of-the-Year honor as he won the award outright following the 2015 season.
Joining Dimanche on the All-SCAC team was Dean Dulthummon. Dulthummon went 16-5 this season at #2 and #3 singles including a win over #15 Trinity at the #2 position in mid-April. Dulthummon has also been a part of a dominating doubles team, dropping just three matches all spring.
The Pirates also had two earn All-SCAC Honorable Mention selections. Alonso Fernandez and Grant Gideon were named in the release. Fernandez went 14-4 at #6 singles while Gideon went 12-8 in singles action at the #2 position.
To view the entire All-SCAC Men's Tennis team, click here.