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CU men's tennis wins first LSC title
Portions of this release are courtesy of Abilene Christian Sports Information.
ABILENE, Texas (April 26) – The nationally ranked #7 Cameron Aggie men's tennis team dominated the Lone Star Conference regular season, and the Aggies continued that domination right through the LSC Championship Tournament.
The Aggies won the program's first LSC men's tennis championship today with a 5-0 thrashing of nationally ranked #13 Abilene Christian at the Eager Tennis Center on the ACU campus. The Aggies, who are ranked #1 in the region, improved to 20-3 with the victory while the Wildcats, who are ranked #3 in the region, fall to 19-10.
Both Cameron and ACU will advance to the regional tournament in two weeks with Cameron serving as the host of one of the tournaments. The region's #2 seed, Incarnate Word, will be the likely host of the other men's tournament.
Cameron got off to a fast start as the Aggies rolled out to a 3-0 lead after doubles play, leaving them just two singles wins short of winning the championship. However, veteran Cameron head coach James Helvey knew his team wasn't out of the woods.
“I had a good feeling being up 3-0, but I also told our guys that ACU has a great team and a great program and that they would make a strong run at us in singles play,” Coach Helvey said. “I've seen ACU go down 3-0 after doubles and then rally to win five singles matches, and they were capable of doing that (today). But our guys played with great passion and intensity today and it's just such a great feeling to finally be able to win this thing.”
The feature match of the day was at No. 1 doubles where the ACU team of Juan Nunez and Ryan Hudson took on the Cameron duo of Daniel Pazos and Jordi Mullor. Nunez and Hudson went into the match ranked #7 in the nation, while Pazos and Mullor were ranked #15 in the nation. Pazos and Mullor dominated from the outset, and took an 8-5 win in the first match of the day.
That set the Aggies off on a roll the Wildcats couldn't stop as Nicolas Mascheroni and Cristian Easton won 8-5 at No. 2 doubles, and Saman Samii and Ignacio Murgier won 8-6 at No. 3 doubles. Pazos then beat Hudson, 6-3, 6-2, at No. 2 singles, and Samii beat Luke Hawk, 6-2, 6-1, in the title-clinching match at No. 3 singles.
“It feels awesome, just awesome,” Coach Helvey said. “The way we won it was great because of how well we played against a good team like ACU. We dominated all day long and it was just a great feeling.”
Today’s conference championship continues the banner year for Coach Helvey who beat Abilene Christian for the first time ever just a few weeks ago in a regular season match. He also recorded his 500th career victory this year. CU’s victory over ACU at the Cameron Tennis Center in March was scored 5-4.
As mentioned previously, the next action for the Aggie men’s tennis team comes from May 9-10 at the CU Tennis Center. After finishing the 2007-2008 season as the top team in the Lone Star Conference and the NCAA Division II Central Region, Cameron will host the first two rounds of the NCAA National tournament in two weeks.
Should the Aggies advance past the first two regional rounds of the national tournament, they will advance to Houston, Texas, where the remaining rounds of the national tournament will be played.
In other Aggie tennis news, a number of Cameron players received LSC honors at the awards banquet earlier this week. Mullor, Pazos, and Mascheroni were all named to both the LSC All-Conference Singles and Doubles teams, while Samii was named to just the LSC All-Conference Doubles team. Pazos was also named the LSC Newcomer of the Year, and Coach Helvey was named the LSC Coach of the Year. Agustin Criado was named to the LSC All-Conference Honorable Mention team.
On the women’s tennis side, Irene George and Viviana Seca were named to both the LSC All-Conference Singles and Honorable Mention teams. Megan deBlonk, Kim Romero, and Whitney Renfurm were also all named to the LSC honorable Mention team.
The Cameron women’s team fell 5-2 to East Central University in the first round of the LSC tournament. They will still be moving onto the national tournament despite the loss.
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