This past weekend the Women traveled to Nielsen Tennis center in
Madison for the WIAC conference tournament.
This is the culmination of our fall conference season and determines the
conference champion for the year.
Because of the spectacular play from our Lady Hawks during the regular
season, we received the one seed, and first round byes in seven of the nine
flights. The tournament opened on
Saturday with doubles action featuring the senior duo of Abby Day/ Hilary
Franzen, who were making their conference tournament debut in the #3 doubles
draw. The seniors came out on fire
taking down UW-Stout easily in the first round, and then avenging a regular
season loss to a tough UW-Eau Claire team, 9-7.
Another senior making her debut in the conference championship lineup
was Jess Vitale. Jess received a #1 seed
and a first round bye in the #6 singles flight and did not play till
Sunday. In her first match she came out
focused (as all our experienced seniors do) and defeated UW-Stevens Point
easily. In the finals she was pushed by
Paige Kuepers from UW-Eau Claire but came out victorious 6-2, 7-5 and claiming
the #6 singles WIAC title. Day/Franzen
also claimed a conference title with an 8-3 win over UW-Lacrosse's Graham/Wabers.
The WIAC tournament also featured an amazing performance from
senior captain Alexandra Bayliss as she claimed the #1 singles WIAC title and
more importantly received the Judy Kruckman Scholar Athlete award. See Judy Kruckman Award Article. Bayliss also went undefeated in conference
singles play over her four years at UW-Whitewater. The WIAC tournament also featured Coach
Barnes receiving his fourth WIAC coach of the year award.
All in all the Lady Hawks were able to capture 6 of the 9 flights
including 5 of the 6 singles draws. Most
importantly the Ladies claimed their seventh consecutive WIAC conference
championship and earned the #1 seed for the WIAC final four this spring. The winner of which represents the WIAC in
the NCAA Division III National team tournament.
We had an accident with the MAC book so the pictures will be up ASAP. :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment