SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Academy of Art women's tennis claimed runner-up at the PacWest Championship Tournament, Saturday at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex, after dropping a tough 4-1 match to Hawaii Pacific who claimed their second straight title. The Urban Knights have now placed third or better at the PacWest Championship each of the past three years and have most likely secured themselves a spot in 2019 NCAA West Regionals.

"It was a tough loss for the whole team," said head coach Clarisse Baca. "For the five seniors especially, we wanted to win that for them more than anything. I think one of the lessons from today's match is that we need to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to us. We have to play hard to the end and today Hawaii Pacific came out stronger than we did."

Playing in the second position, seniors Paula Alcantara and Taisiia Andrieieva lost 6-1 to Mihoki Miyahara and Sarah IkiokaIn. Then in a shocking upset the No. 3 ranked doubles team of seniors Alma Thell-Lenntorp and Klara Thell-Lenntorp were defeated by No. 40 Elodie Busson and Elisa Elhadj 6-4 to give the Sharks the doubles point.

The Urban Knights started singles strong with first set wins in the first, second, fourth and six position, but the pressure intensified when HPU won matches in the fifth and third position to take a 3-0 lead. A. Thell-Lenntorp gave ART U their first point of the day with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Elisa Elhadj. The match was decided shortly after when Heloise Le Normand came back to win back-to-back sets over Alcantara and clinch the match and championship for HPU.

"We played hard against Sonoma State, we played hard against Fresno Pacific," said Baca. " But when it matters the most in the finals we need to make sure we take advantage of those opportunities. We are going to keep our heads up and keep moving forward. That's the only thing we need to do."

Academy of Art will look ahead to NCAA Regionals where they will await the announcement to determine who and where they will play for a chance to compete in Nationals.

"We have to wait and see if we make it to regionals," said Baca. "We are going to keep practicing hard and make sure we are healthy and working hard on closing those matches. Were there, we just have to make it happen and make sure we come out with a win next time."