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RIPON, Wis. – The 2013 Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Championship kicks off Friday, October 18 with the team championship at the Boylan Tennis Center and Forest City Tennis Club in Rockford, Ill. before play shifts to the Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wis. on Saturday and Sunday for the singles and doubles championships.
In the team championship on Friday all four teams return from a year ago as 2012 MWC Champion Grinnell (9-4, 4-1) will take on MWC North Division winner St. Norbert (14-1, 4-0) at 8:30 a.m. at Boylan Tennis Center. At Forest City Tennis Center MWC South Division winner Lake Forest (11-0, 5-0) squares off against Carroll (10-5, 3-1), also at 8:30 a.m., with the winners of the semifinal matches playing for the MWC Championship at Boylan Tennis Center at 1:30 p.m. Earlier this season St. Norbert won a tight 5-4 match over Grinnell on October 5 while Lake Forest defeated Carroll 6-3 on September 17.
On Saturday the three doubles champions will be crowned when play starts in Madison while the six singles champions will be crowned on Sunday.
Beloit barely missed out on the team portion of championship weekend but enters the individual championships with the second-most medals in MWC history. The Bucs have won 44 total championships that include 30 singles championships and 14 doubles championships with the last title coming in the 2009 season when Erin Zevin won the No. 2 singles title. Maria Mears and Courtney Yates led the team in wins this year with nine as Yates posted a 9-6 mark in the No. 2 flight. Alex Hinck was 8-6 in the No. 3 flight while Trina Capelli had six wins in the No. 1 flight. The pairing of Capelli and Yates enter with seven wins in the No. 1 doubles flight with Hinck and Mears teaming up for five wins in the No. 2 doubles flight.
Carroll looks to avenge an opening round loss in the team championship and are set to do so after going 3-1 in league play and 10-5 overall during the regular season. The Pioneers play for their first team championship in school history and also return an individual champion from 2012. Abigail Pellett won a championship in the No. 1 singles flight a year ago and ranks second of all singles players with a 17-2 overall record and is a perfect 15-0 in the No. 1 singles flight. Julia Patzin enters as one of the top players in the No. 3 flight with a 13-2 in-flight mark while sporting a 14-3 overall record. Samantha Hoyord is 11-4 overall and plays out of the No. 5 flight where she is 10-3 on the season. Pellett and Megan Rosenburg team up in the No. 1 doubles flight for a 10-5 overall record with Patzin and Alison Lambrecht earning eight wins in the No. 2 flight.
Cornell picked up a fifth-place finish at last year’s championship in the school’s first season back since 1997 and will challenge for the program’s first individual medal since 1995. Shashanna Moll headlines the Rams roster as she earned 11 overall victories this season that includes six wins in the No. 2 flight and four wins in the No. 1 flight. Ariana Hudson had nine overall wins playing in the top two flights while Heather Schrauth has seven wins out of the No. 5 flight. Hudson and Moll pair up as one of the top doubles pairs in the league with a 14-6 overall record, including an 11-5 record in the No. 1 doubles flight while Schrauth and Anne Seng have seven wins in the No. 3 flight.
In a tight 5-3 victory in the 2012 MWC Championship match Grinnell won its ninth championship with eight of those coming in the last nine seasons. The Pioneers finished the South Division slate with a 4-1 record and won nine matches overall. Grinnell headlines the MWC with 64 individual championships and won six of the nine championships a year ago. Hannah Feldman won gold in the No. 4 singles flight and led the team with a 12-3 overall record this season. Julia Rumley was the only other singles champion to return after capturing the No. 6 flight championship and has played in three different flights this year to amass a 9-2 record. Feldman and Rumley also won a doubles championship last season in the No. 3 flight but will pair up with different partners this season. The duo of Sadhana Athreya and Shirlene Luk vie for a championship in the No. 1 flight after earning eight overall victories this season and having the championship experience of Luk who won a No. 1 flight doubles championship with Clothilde Thirouin last season.
Illinois Col. is in search of its first singles or doubles champion is school history and aim to break that drought when they travel to Madison. Audrey Brauer earned a team-best eight wins during the regular season and will play out of the No. 4 flight where she owns a 6-1 record. Tamar Norville plays out of the No. 1 flight after earning four in-flight wins while posting a 7-6 overall record. Jovanna Chavez was 6-7 overall that included a 4-2 record in the No. 5 flight. Zippy Abdulmalik and Brauer finished the regular season 5-2 in the No. 2 doubles flight while Norville and Holly Woelfel pair up in the No. 1 flight with five wins.
Knox is in search of its first individual champion since 2000 when they travel to Madison for the championship weekend while also looking to improve on its eighth place finish from a year ago. Charlotte Garvin owns five wins out of the No. 1 singles flight while Dana Pierce has five overall wins while going 4-6 out of the No. 2 flight. Emiley Brand plays out of the No. 3 flight where she has three wins and also picked up a win in the No. 2 flight. Garvin and Pierce play out of the No. 1 doubles flight while Brand and Claire Neri are 2-3 out of the No. 2 flight for the Prairie Fire.
Lake Forest earned a spot in the team tournament by winning the South Division with a perfect 5-0 overall record in consecutive seasons and is playing for its first MWC Championship since 2003. Last season the Foresters fell just short with a 5-3 loss at the hands of Grinnell but picked up a doubles championship in the No. 2 flight by the team of Grace Dowling and Gracie Mullins. The tandem aims to repeat after finishing the regular season as one of the top doubles pairs with a 6-1 overall record that includes a perfect 5-0 record in the No. 2 flight. Aimee Fadden and Marisa Guggenheim were 8-0 out of the No. 3 flight as Lake Forest looks for multiple doubles championships for the first time in school history. In the singles flights Lexi Chionis and Dowling have nine overall wins with Guggenheim picking up eight wins.
Lawrence took home a seventh place finish a year ago and play for the school’s first individual championship since the 2011 when the Vikings won gold in the No. 1 doubles flight, No. 1 singles flight, and No. 4 singles flight. Melissa Heeren enters the championships with the most wins on the team as she earned nine overall wins that spanned over four flights including a 7-3 record over the No. 4 and 5 flights. Hannah Geoffrey plays out of the No. 2 flight where she was 8-6 on the season while Allison Juda was 7-4 over three different flights. Polly Dalton and Gayatri Malhotra team up as the most successful doubles tandem with eight wins in the No. 2 flight while Geoffrey and Heiring had seven wins in the No. 1 flight.
Monmouth enters the championships looking for an individual champion for the first time since 2008 after missing out on the team championship portion of the weekend. Katy Tolsky, who picked up two of her three wins out of the No. 3 singles flight, will move into the No. 2 singles slot this weekend. Christine Peterson competed in three different flights this season and earned a win in the No. 5 flight for the Fighting Scots. Amanda Buck and Sarah Schmitt earned Monmouth’s second doubles win last weekend at No. 2 and will fill that flight at the championships.
Ripon enters the championships weekend with the third-most singles championships and the second-most doubles championships in conference history and aim to add to that mark in 2013. Elizabeth Ake has four wins out of the No. 1 singles flight with teammate Maddie Vanden Houten earning four wins in the No. 2 flight. Ake and Vanden Houten team up in the No. 1 doubles flight where they have three wins on the season while the duo of Lucero Pena and Maura Slattery have a pair of wins out of the No. 3 flight.
St. Norbert plays for the team championship for the ninth straight season after going 4-0 in league play and posting a league-best 14 overall wins. The Green Knights last won a team championship in 2009 and accumulated 27 individual championships, the fourth most in league history. Katherine Ake headlines the Green Knights lineup with an 18-1 on the season which is the best singles record across all flights in the MWC with 14 of those wins coming in the No. 4 flight. Erika Chitko was 14-1 in the No. 2 flight with 16 wins overall while Elizabeth Manlick was a near-perfect 14-1 in the No. 3 flight. Manlick teams with Ashley Randazzo for a 10-1 mark in the No. 2 doubles flight while Ake and Maggie Berens are 11-0 in the No. 3 flight.