Hach Advances Into National Small College Championship Finals

ABILENE - Abilene Christian junior Hans Hach looks to become the Wildcats' first national singles champion in tennis since 1992 when he takes the court Saturday morning for the D-II men's singles finals at the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships.

The Wildcats' most recent - and only - national champion in tennis was 2008 ACU Hall of Fame inductee Michelle King, who won the 1992 NCAA?women's singles title. In the fall of her senior year (1991), King teamed with then-junior Lara Mahaney to win the ITCA-Rolex NCAA doubles national championship, making her a double national champion as a senior.

To join King as a national champion, Hach will first have to defeat No. 1-ranked singles player Georgi Rumenov of Armstrong Atlantic. A senior, Rumenov led the Pirates to this past spring's NCAA D-II team title behind an overall 21-1 singles record. He is 13-1 so far this spring and cruised through his first two championship matches Thursday and Friday.

Hach also has won more than a dozen matches this fall, including six each at the ITA South Central Regional Championships and New Mexico State Invitational. And in reaching this week's championship finals, he first knocked off Azusa Pacific's Joechem Hoefnagels, 6-3, 7-6 (5) in the first round, and then came back from a set down to defeat No. 13 Willi Wolfer of Lynn, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.

In doubles, Hach and his partner Borja Cortes lost their semifinal match to the Barry University team of Marco Mokrzycki and Fabian Groetsch, 6-4, 7-6 (6), and will play again late Friday afternoon in the third-place doubles match vs. Daniel Piludu and Andrey Boldarev of Concordia. As individuals last spring, Mokrzycki and Groetsch finished the season ranked fifth and 19th, respectively.

ACU senior Julia Mongin will be competing for third-place titles in both singles and doubles. She lost her singles semifinal Friday morning to No. 6 Barbora Krtickova of Armstrong Atlantic, 6-4, 7-6 (1), and then dropped a 6-2, 6-2 doubles decision with partner Brittney Reed vs. No. 1 Annie Hwang and Sherry Liu of BYU-Hawai'i. Their next opponent is the Lynn tandem of Ioana Ivan and Valentian Confalonieri.

Mongin's third-place singles match vs. No. 35 Kristina Huba of Florida Tech begins Saturday at 8:30 a.m.

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