The Hawaii Pacific University women’s tennis team got redemption Saturday, along with its ticket to the round of 16 of the NCAA Division II championships.
The Sharks (19-2) avenged one of their losses in convincing fashion, knocking off UC San Diego 5-1 at the University of Hawaii courts. With the win over the Tritons (13-11), second-ranked HPU is on an eight-match winning streak since losing 5-4 at Azusa Pacific a month ago.
“The two losses were hard losses we didn’t expect,” Sharks coach Lauren Conching said. “It made them fight harder.”
HPU was ranked No. 1 for the first time in program history when it fell to Azusa.
“When you’re on top, everyone’s going after you,” said senior Lena Lutzeier, who is rated as the No. 1 singles player in Division II. “We had to get used to that.”
The winning streak includes road victories against the then No. 2 – and 3-ranked teams in the country, and a first PacWest conference championship.
“I’m not really sure what happened in La Jolla (a 5-4 road loss to UCSD on March 9, after the Sharks swept the Tritons on the Big Island on Feb. 18),” Conching said. “But in the last three weeks we’ve been going up and up, with such great confidence.”
This time HPU got off to a better start, winning two of the three doubles matches. The reverse happened in the loss at UCSD.
In singles, Lutzeier and Lara Meccico (No. 3 nationally) made quick work of their opponents. Ashley Chao and Rebecca Chou combined to take just three games against them.
That made it a race in the other four matches for HPU’s clincher.
It didn’t come until more than an hour later, when Oceane Adam won a second-set tiebreaker over Alexandra Weil at No. 3 singles. The other three matches had gone to a third set.
In March, Weil’s 7-5, 6-2 upset of Adam — who was ranked No. 21 at the time — was the turning point. That was after Adam and Lutzeier unexpectedly lost their doubles match.
It made closing out Saturday’s victory even sweeter for her.
“This time I tried to be more aggressive,” Adam said. “She made me run from side-to-side a lot last time. I was serving much better (Saturday).”
The Sharks are off until May 8 and their round of 16 match at Surprise, Ariz., against an opponent to be determined. HPU is in its 20th consecutive NCAA tournament, and has made the semifinals in four of Conching’s five years as head coach.
