It was a sweep, pure and simple. Brigham Young University completely dominated the women's WAC Tennis Championships on Saturday.
In the final, on the brand new outdoor court complex on campus, the Cougars beat the Aztecs of San Diego State, 5-0, plus one retired match, which happened to be the Aztecs' only hope of stopping the sweep.In the fight for third, the University of Utah suffered a disheartening lose to Fresno State, 6-3. Down 4-2 after the singles, Utah was leading in all three of the doubles when Lisa Paal, a senior and playing in her last collegiate match, went down with a knee injury at the start of the third set. The Utes had to retire the match, which clinched the win for Fresno.
The Cougars went into the finals favored, but no one quite expected it to be so lopsided. They drew a bye in the first round, then beat Utah 5-1, giving up only 24 games in the five matches won, and only 24 more on Saturday. What makes this win even more impressive is that the Y.'s No. 5 players, Sarah Mugnaini was injured, which meant the players in Nos. 6 and 7 spots had to play higher.
Keith Nielson, the assistant women's coach, said he knew at the start of the year that the Cougars would be strong.
A good recruiting year, along with a good returning force, "made it appear, at least on paper, that we'd be strong . . . and we do have a very strong team."
The first match off the court was Monika Kobilikova, who came into the No. 6 spot fill in the gap. She breezed past Shawn Egan easily, 6-2, 6-0.
Michelle Domanico, who had to move from No. 6 to No. 5, followed with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Emma Doyle.
Julie Menefee, playing at No. 3, beat Jennifer Nguyen, 6-4, 6-0, and Cherie Kaneshiro, playing at No. 4, beat Christy Propstra, 6-2, 6-2.
At this point the match was decided. The Aztecs would have needed to sweep the rest of the matches, and that was not too likely. But was it?
At No. 2, Evi Koljanin broke at love in the 6th, then broke again in the 8th to win the first set. But then the Aztecs' Tonya Lauer turned the match around. She broke in the 7th game, held and broke for the set in the 9th game. Now it was a new match.
Over on court No. 1, BYU's Jennifer Saret and Lisa Alipaz were playing long rallies and close games. Down 5-2 in the first set, Saret won the next three games to tie the match at 5-all. Then it went to 6-all and into the tie breaker. In the playoff, the score went to 3-all, then 6-all and 7-all, then finally Saret pulled it out when Alipaz returned wide to win 9-7.
Meanwhile, Koljanin's match was well into third set with BYU in complete control. On match point Koljanin return a forehand cross-court for a winner - set, match and WAC championships wrapped up.
Rather than continue on with No. 1 singles, now only at 2-1 for Alipaz, BYU's coach Ann Valentine opted to retire the match and celebrate the team's second consecutive WAC title.
"The team was really focused today," said Valentine, who is currently in her 27th season as the Cougars' coach. "They played well. To win the WAC championships in singles for the second straight year is very exciting.
"And with Sarah out, the others came out and played exceptionally well."
In the Utah-Fresno match, the Utes posted wins at Nos. 1 and 4 singles. Rebecca Smith beat Amy Gallagher, 6-3, 6-2, and Clodagh Bowyer beat Vicki Potter, 6-1, 6-4. Sarah Mecham and Heidi Chinchilo lost in three sets, and Jennifer Jensen lost a close match with Marta Pitarch, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.
Conference honors were announced earlier in the day. They were: All-WAC in singles - Saret, Kaneshiro and Mugnaini, BYU; Smith, Utah; Alipaz, SDSU; Megan Pye, New Mexico; and Gallagher and Mary Jo Fallara, Fresno State. All-WAC in doubles - Saret
/Menefee, BYU; Smith/Paal, Utah; Alipaz/Jennifer Nguyen, SDSU; and Fallara/Gallagher, Fresno State. Player of the Year was Saret; Sportsmanship Award went to Smith; and voted Coach of the Year was Valentine.