BYU-H women win national tennis crown
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PENSACOLA, Fla. — The BYU-Hawaii women's tennis team won the NCAA Division II National Championship here May 17, defeating Armstrong Atlantic State University, 5-1.
The national title is the first for BYU-Hawaii at the Division II level and it comes in the school's first year in the division.
The Seasiders' women's tennis team won national titles each of the last two years in the NAIA.
BYU-Hawaii won all the singles matches and two of the three doubles matches over Armstrong Atlantic, a university located in Savannah, Ga.
Maylani Ah-Hoy, a returned missionary from the California Roseville Mission, is the only Church member on the team who participated in the tournament. She and teammate, Tomoko Sukegawa, came from behind to win the No. 3 doubles match.
Seasider Head Coach Dave Porter said he is proud of the entire team. "We thought we had a good enough team to win it, but we knew we'd have to play up to our potential to get the job done," he explained.
Coach Porter also praised the support of the Church members in Pensacola. "We had great support from the Church here," he said. "There were missionaries and stake missionaries in the stands. One of the members of the bishopric here brought his family out to watch us regularly during the tournament. On Sunday, in Church, they announced that we were playing the championship on Monday, and we had a pretty good turnout of members considering that it was short notice and a working day."
The championship match was originally scheduled by the NCAA for Sunday but was moved to Monday at the request of BYU-Hawaii because the school does not play on the Sabbath.
BYU-Hawaii dominated the championships this year, losing only one match during the four-day event. The Seasiders, ranked No. 1 in the nation coming into the event, justified their ranking with a 20-1 record in individual matches during the tournament.
