Craig Morgan, thesundevils.com Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Don't get the Sun Devils women's tennis team wrong. They're excited about their 29th straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, which begins with regional play at Auburn on Friday and Saturday.
After 33 years of coaching, however, ASU tennis icon and Pac-12 Coach of the Year Sheila McInerney is making sure her team stops to smell the daisies.
"The end of the year counts the most and you always remember it for what you do in the NCAAs so it’s really important; you want to finish strong," ASU's coach said. "That being said, and maybe it's because I have been in coaching for so long, I realize you have to make sure you are enjoying the steps along the way. If your only goal is the end of the year then you don't enjoy some of the nice victories and nice moments that you have had along the way."
The Devils have had plenty of those this season.
In March, the Sun Devils handed eventual-Pac-12 regular-season champion Stanford its only conference loss of the season, marking just the second time in program history the Devils had defeated the Cardinal. On April 8, ASU defeated then-No. 23 UCLA in Los Angeles for the first time since 2000.
ASU (17-5) posted the best conference finish in program history (8-2) this season. In addition, senior Ebony Panoho and junior Alex Osborne won the school's first conference doubles championship, and the Devils won the team title for the first time in program history, marking the first time since 2003 that a team outside California had won the event.
The achievements are stacking up, and ASU hopes to add to them in the coming weeks, but the moments that occurred away from the public eye were just as meaningful.
The team's historic win over UCLA came after a six-hour rain delay that forced the team to get creative as it waited out the weather at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
"We were at the tennis facility the whole day, stuck in this room so we made a little net with chairs and we were playing mini-tennis," Panoho said. "We were just trying to be entertained."
McInerney won that impromptu match, but Panoho joked that the team let her win.
"Absolutely," she said. "It was the smart thing to do."
For the third straight year at the Pac-12 Championships, the team stayed with a family in their home in Ojai, California, offering memories that will last a lifetime.
"They have a cottage out back so some of the girls stayed in the cottage and some stayed in the house," Osborne said. "They have chickens and rabbits and a pet hamster that they were racing when we arrived.
"It's like our second home. The family is so nice and hospitable. It’s so great not coming back to a hotel and staring at the walls. We hang out in the living room and relax and talk so it’s a totally different experience."
The same can be said of this weekend's regional at Auburn. Due to a recent switch in format, teams no longer travel to a nearby destination for regionals.
"We went to Alabama two years ago; went to Oklahoma State last year and were two points away from getting out of that regional," McInerney said. "Now we go to Auburn and those are three places we haven’t been so that's exciting for the kids. We'll face three teams we have never played so it feels more like an NCAA Tournament. We're not going to USC or UCLA or some place we've already seen."
The Sun Devils will have to adapt to different conditions in Alabama, including high humidity and slower courts, but the greater challenge is facing opponents on which ASU has little more than notes from opposing coaches. Unlike team sports such as basketball or football, there isn’t film readily available on opponents because it’s difficult to film action on six different courts.
"We don’t know them but that's fun because it’s new tennis, new teams and these are the best teams in the country so you get to see where you are," Osborne said. "We're peaking and that's what you hope for at the end of the season so we’re pretty confident going into NCAAs in team play and then to Tulsa for individuals."
Panoho said the Sun Devils have never lacked confidence, but their achievements this season have underscored their potential.
"All of us know how good we are and that we can go far in NCAAs," she said. "But this season has opened our eyes and made us really believe we can accomplish big things."