ACU Head Coach
Hutton Jones Interivew |
Hannah Kelley and
Hans Hach Interview
ABILENE – Members of Abilene Christian's nationally ranked tennis teams will be competing at three separate tournaments this weekend as the fall season officially gets underway.
Joining All-Americans
Hans Hach and
Julia Mongin for the Midland (Texas) Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational will be Borja Cortés and Brittany Reed, while the remaining Wildcats will be split between Las Cruces, N.M. and Oklahoma City.
The women's team will be taking part in the Aggie Invitational where they will face opposition from New Mexico, Northern Arizona, St. Edward's, UT Arlington, UTEP, and UT-Permian Bain.
The Oklahoma City Invitational is being hosted by Seminole State; a junior college program that has recorded five consecutive top-ten finishes.
Both Hach and Mongin have attended the Racquet Club Invitational in previous years. Hach made his Midland debut last fall as one of only four Division-II student-athletes invited along with Mongin and her twin sister, Laura, plus his doubles partner
Nick Plum.
Hach won his first two Midland matches in straight sets against opposition from New Mexico and Boise State before falling to eventual tournament finalist and No. 3 seed Soren Hess-Olsen of Texas in the round of 16. In doubles, Hach and Plum reached the tournament's quarterfinals where they were edged, 9-8, by Tulsa.
Julia Mongin won the Midland singles title as an unseeded sophomore in 2010 and along the way defeated players from Penn State, Pepperdine, Texas-Arlington, Texas A&M, Rice, and Tulsa. Last year, however, as the tournament's No. 8 seed, she lost in the second round in three sets to Katie Gater of Rice.
Cortés joined ACU during last year's semester break and earned all-conference recognition in singles after posting an overall record of 18-8. The sophomore also finished the spring ranked No. 12 by the ITA in the South Central Region.
Hach and Cortés played just once together in doubles last spring and that was an 8-5 win over the No. 1 doubles team from 31st-ranked Rockhurst.
Reed, the defending Lone Star Conference Freshman of the Year and all-conference singles honoree, led the ACU women with 24 victories a year ago, and finished the spring ranked ninth in the region. She and
Julia Mongin went 4-0 last year as the Wildcats' early season No. 1 doubles team.
Julia later was paired with Laura and together they finished with a No. 19 national ranking.
ACU's best doubles team from 2011, however, was the pairing of
Micah Hermsdorf and
Hannah Kelley, which earned All-America status after finishing the year with an 18-4 record and No. 4 ranking. The duo's most notable wins included an 8-1 victory over the third-ranked Lynn University duo of Ioana Ivan and Sabine Krause during the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship as well as a 9-8 (23-21) marathon triumph over New Mexico State's Natalia Salum and Manon Sylvain.
Joining Hermsdorf and Kelley this weekend in Las Cruces will be Micah's younger sister, Kaysie, and newcomer
Jamie Lee Denton, plus returning veterans
Emily Conrad,
Laura Mongin and
Madelyn Walker. Conrad and
Laura Mongin each won over 20 singles matches this past spring, while Walker compiled a 4-2 mark in singles and was 16-7 in doubles.
Denton and the younger Hermsdorf were both ranked among the top-25 players in Texas as seniors and should provide the Wildcats with tremendous depth throughout 2012-13.
The ACU men's roster is equally deep as it returns six players from last year's team that reached the NCAA quarterfinals. Hach and Cortés should be considered their top two singles players early on followed by a combination of senior
Alfredo Desiati, and sophomores
Guilherme Gesser,
Kyle Plum and
Michael Morris.
Desiati went 17-11 as a junior and earned a Lone Star Conference honorable mention citation.
New to the program are
Brandon McCarty, an Abilene native and younger brother to former Wildcat
Cody McCarty;
Jason Proctor, a top-five player out of Oklahoma; freshman
Johnathan Sanderson and senior walk-on
Tucker Mueck.
