Canes Prep For NCAA Individual Championships

Below is a guest piece from columnist Scott Salomon, covering the upcoming NCAA Individual Championships for women’s tennis. Salomon recently did a piece on legendary baseball coach Ron Fraser and will be featured here at allCanesBlog.com in the future.

The University of Miami women’s tennis team will feature three singles players in this season’s NCAA Individual Championships and will also field a doubles team in the Doubles Championship, the NCAA announced earlier this week. All bids were at-large selections. This will be the second consecutive year that the Canes will have players participating in the championship events.

Junior Stephanie Wagner and freshman Sinead Lohan made the Singles Championship, while Wagner and senior Lina Lileikite were selection for the Doubles Championship.

This is the third consecutive year that Wagner has made the Singles Championship. She advanced to the second round in both 2013 and 2014.

An All-ACC selection for each of her three of seasons at UM, Wagner was named First Team All-ACC for the second year in a row. The German national is currently ranked tenth in the nation and has posted a 14-4 mark in dual matches this season.

Lohan, the first player in Hurricane program history to win the ACC Freshman of the Year award, has been among the top 45 of the ITA’s singles rankings for the entire season. A second-team All-ACC pick, Lohan is currently ranked No. 40 and features an overall record of 18-2 this season, with seven wins over nationally-ranked opponents.

A native of Ireland, Lohan is one of just seven true freshmen in the country to make the field.

Miami was one of just 14 schools to place multiple players in the field, along with only three other ACC schools. Thirteen ACC players from seven different schools were selected to the Singles Championship.

For the second straight year Miami has a pair in the NCAA Doubles Championship. Lileikite, from Liepaja, Latvia, will compete in the Individual Championships for the first time. Meanwhile, Wagner will be making her first appearance in the doubles field.

The duo is ranked No. 15 in the country and has been in the top 15 for the entire season. Lileikite and Wagner have posted a 4-2 mark at the top doubles position this season.

One of just 22 at-large bids in the doubles field, Lileikite and Wagner are among the five doubles pairs from the ACC to be selected, each coming from a different school.

The NCAA Individual Championships will take play May 20-25 at Baylor University’s Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas.

The trio of Hurricanes and their teammates will begin play in the NCAA Team Championship next Friday, May 8 at 2:00 p.m. at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center in Coral Gables.

Miami (16-6, 12-2 ACC), ranked and seeded No. 15, will be hosting an NCAA Regional for the 11th straight season and opens play against UNF.

The University of Miami women’s tennis team was one of 16 programs across the nation tabbed by the selection committee to host a Regional of the NCAA Team Championship, as announced Tuesday evening.

The Hurricanes, both seeded and ranked No. 15, will welcome Ole Miss, Denver and UNF to the Neil Schiff Tennis Center, May 8-9.

Denver will play Ole Miss at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, while Miami will host UNF at 2:00 p.m. The winners of the two matches will play for the regional title on Saturday at 2 p.m. to see who advances to the next round.

This is the 11th year in a row that that the Hurricanes are hosting the first and second round of the NCAA Championships and the 20th consecutive season that Miami (16-6, 12-2 ACC) has made the field overall.

“Huge accomplishment for the program,” Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews said of the Hurricanes hosting yet again. “We came out of ACCs with kind of a sour taste in our mouths, so this is obviously some good news that I think that we needed. These girls have worked really hard this season.”

The 15th-ranked Hurricanes finished in the second in the Atlantic Coast Conference and have been ranked in the top 20 the entire season. Miami has had five singles players ranked and at least two doubles pairs ranked in every set of rankings this season.

“I still truly believe that we have not played our best tennis match yet,” Yaroshuk-Tews said. “Just like I told them, things happen for a reason and we got to get back to practice tomorrow, get ready to play, and get ready to go far in the Tournament. I think that we could do some damage moving forward. I’m happy for the girls, I’m happy for their effort, and I think at the end of the day that they definitely deserved [to host].”

Miami has advanced to the Sweet 16 each of the last nine years, a streak that began in 2006 and is good for the fourth longest in the nation. The Hurricanes have won at least one match in the NCAA Team Championship in all 13 of Yaroshuk-Tews’ years at the helm.

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