Wahine capture first Big West tennis title

1/1

Swipe or click to see more

PHOTO COURTESY BIG WEST VIA JOSH BARBER

Hawaii senior Marina Hruba held the Big West Conference trophy after the Rainbow Wahine defeated Cal State Fullerton 4-2 in the championship match of the women’s tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., on Sunday.

Select an option below to continue reading this premium story.

Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading.

Get unlimited access

From as low as $12.95 /mo.

Subscribe Now

Jun Hernandez will have a lot more company on this year’s trip to the NCAA women’s tennis championships.

The University of Hawaii coach accompanied Cindy Nguyen and Petra Melounova to the NCAA singles event the past three years. This time the Rainbow Wahine will travel as a team after capturing the program’s first Big West championship with a 4-2 win over Cal State Fullerton on Sunday in Indian Wells, Calif.

“It’s really been a dream,” Hernandez said in a phone interview. “Petra and Cindy have been great company as well, they did a great job for our program, but it’s much more special, of course, when the whole team will be there.”

The fourth-seeded Rainbow Wahine knocked off a higher seed for the second straight day to earned a berth in the NCAA tournament, which begins May 11. UH last qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2012 as the Western Athletic Conference champion.

UH reached the Big West final for the third straight year with a dramatic 4-3 win over top-seeded and two-time defending champion UC Santa Barbara on Saturday.

“It helped us a little bit being the more experienced team,” UH junior Roxanne Resma said. “But our coach just told us to focus on the process and focus on one point at a time and no matter what the results were he’s going to be proud of us so I think that really helped us too.”

The Wahine, who lost to third-seeded Fullerton in the regular season, claimed the doubles point on Sunday and picked up singles wins from Melounova and Klara Pribylova to close to within a point of the title in the best-of-seven.

Resma, playing at No. 6 singles, rallied to win her first set against Jadie Acidera in a tiebreaker then rolled in the second set to clinch the title for the Wahine with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory.

“(Since) the championship last year when we lost, we knew were going to come back with the same team, except for Cindy,” Hernandez said, “and they were really motivated and they really focused the whole year to accomplish this.”

Melounova is in line to qualify for the singles tournament as well as the highest ranked player in the Big West at No. 80.