Women's Tennis Clinches 5th Consecutive Bid to NCAA Team Tournament

This weekend the Warhawk Women's Tennis team won the WIAC Final Four Automatic Qualifier. For those of you who don't know the way the Automatic Qualifier works, the top 4 teams from the conference tournament meet at the conference champion's school (UW-Whitewater) to play for the chance to represent the WIAC in the NCAA tournament.

The first match of the day saw the 1 seed, UW-Whitewater, take on the 4 seed, UW-La Crosse. UW-Whitewater played a tight match at 3 doubles, but Megan Kasten and Lauren Aguilar emerged victorious 9-7. 2 doubles was not so kind to the Lady 'Hawks as they feel down early and couldn't get it back eventually falling 9-7. 1 doubles played great for the Lady 'Hawks and won easily 8-1. After doubles the Lady 'Hawks led 2-1. Since the Lady 'Hawks had been moved indoors due to weather the matches were only being played to decision. First on for the Lady 'Hawks was Jackie Vitale at 6 singles, Megan Kasten at 5 singles, and Alexandra Bayliss at 4 singles. Jackie was the first one off winning 6-0, 6-1. Megan Kasten followed winning 6-0, 6-3, and Alexandra clinched the victory with her win at 4 singles 6-0, 6-3. Annie Smith was up 6-1, 4-1 when her match was pulled off. Sydney Divelbiss led at 2 singles and Kalla Schaefer led at 1 singles when their matches were pulled off as well. This clinched the 5-1 victory for the Lady 'Hawks and next up for them was UW-Eau Claire who had won their first match against UW-Oshkosh.

The Lady 'Hawks wasted no time in doubles against UW-Eau Claire.All 3 doubles teams jumped out to early leads with 1 doubles winning 8-3, 2 doubles winning 8-2, and 3 doubles winning 8-0. This time the first Lady 'Hawks out on the court Kalla Schaefer, Sydney Divelbiss, and Annie Smith playing 1, 2, and 3 singles respectively. Because the ladies were up 3-0 after doubles, and the match was being played to decision the ladies only needed to win 2 of the 6 remaining matches to win. Kalla Schaefer won 6-1, 6-1 at won, and eventually Sydney Divelbiss pulled out the 6-4, 6-1 victory at 2 singles. With the score being 5-0 the Lady 'Hawks had already won the match, but they played out 3 singles which went into a third set tiebreaker, and Annie Smith pulled it out 10-5 to make the final score 6-0 for the 'Hawks. This was a great match for the Lady 'Hawks who now get ready to compete in the NCAA tournament.

The game ball winner for the week was Jacqueline Vitale. Coach Barnes had this to say about all the performances this weekend "For the women, there were so many great performances clinching the final four this past weekend, but there was one performance in particular that stuck out in my mind.  Jackie Vitale’s dominating presence in her singles match against La Crosse was simply impressive.  She showed a wide range of weapons from her powerful serve and forehand to her ability to finish at the net.  Her hard work is paying off, and it’s great to see the strides that she has made this season". Be on the lookout for our game ball interview with Jackie coming later this week.