Jan. 15, 2006
Las Vegas, Nev. - In their final tune-up before the start of the regular season, the Arizona State Sun Devils women's tennis team wrapped up the final day of the National Collegiate Tennis Championship at the Freeman Memorial Tournament, hosted by UNLV, on Sunday.
In singles competition, a rainstorm halted Laila Abdala's championship match in the Flight Two singles bracket. Abdala (San Diego, Calif.) finished the weekend with a 2-0 record after advancing into the final round on Saturday afternoon.
The ASU duo of Roxanne Clarke (Cape Town, South Africa) and Kady Pooler (Laguna Niguel, Calif.), the second-seed in the doubles bracket, advanced into the championship round with a victory over Amanda Fink and Carine Vermeulen of USC by an 8-2 score. However, their bid for the tournament championship fell short as the number-one seed team of Alice Barnes and Anne Yelsey from Stanford was victorious in the tiebreaker, 9-7. The victory gave Stanford a clean sweep of the tournament, as Celia Durkin also won the flight one singles crown.
In additional consolation play, junior Wendy Pilecka (Pribram, Czech Republic) defeated South Carolina's Megan McGavock (6-2, 6-1). ASU's doubles teams of Abdala and Sabrina Capannolo (defeated Florida's Liles and Suvak, 8-4) and Pilecka and Rebecca Rankin (defeated UCLA's Lumpkin and McGoodwin, 8-4) were also victorious.
The spring season begins next weekend for the Sun Devils as they host the number-three ranked Texas Longhorns on January 21, at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. The dual match against last year's NCAA finalist begins at noon MST.