Box Score
Glendale, AZ – The Academy of Art University's women's tennis team (8-13) began play in the Pacific West Conference Championships on Thursday afternoon in Arizona. The women who were the number seven-seed in the tournament faced the number two-seed Hawaii Pacific University (16-2) in game one. HPU has been a powerhouse in the conference all season, and the Knights were challenged right away in the match. The Urban Knights played their hearts out but fell short to the Sea Warriors with a score of 0-5.
The women started things off with doubles play. The first match up was with the Knights' top team of Laone "Lala" Botshoma and Diane Phan who fell to their HPU opponents with a score of 8-1. Paola Correa Fe and Anna Ritchie also teamed up, but were defeated with a score of 8-2, and Maria "Belen" Tenorio and Cecilia Hedin combined in doubles but came up short and lost to their Sea Warriors opponents 8-1.
Phan led off singles play for the Knights hoping to turn things around for her team. But the Urban Knights were unable to defeat any of the tough HPU competitors. Phan dropped her match with scores of 6-0, 6-0, and Hedin was defeated by her opponent also by scores of 6-0, 6-0. After the first two singles games, the Sea Warriors clinched the match, and all of the other three singles games went unfinished.
With the loss the Academy of Art University is out of contention for first and second place in the tournament. AAU faces off against The University of Hawaii-Hilo tomorrow, April 16th at 1:00 PM in bracket play.
