ABILENE – Abilene Christian's final season as a NCAA Division II member gets underway this weekend. The No. 3 women will visit Centenary, Northwestern State and Sam Houston State, while the No. 11 men play host to a multi-team indoor/outdoor invitational featuring Oklahoma Christian and Trinity.
ACU's women's will first play at D-III Centenary Friday morning before taking on future Southland Conference foe Northwestern State later that afternoon. The Wildcats' Saturday schedule include a dual at Sam Houston State in Huntsville, Texas.
Sam Houston finished seventh in the Southland last season at 5-6, while Northwestern State tied for fourth at 8-3 and was 14-5 overall.
The Ladies of Centenary compiled a 7-4 overall record last season and went 6-1 vs. the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
The Wildcats return six letterwinners from last year's national semifinal team, including all-Americas
Julia Mongin,
Hannah Kelley and
Micah Hermsdorf. Mongin went 19-9 last fall and will begin her final season at ACU as the nation's No. 5 singles player. She also is one half a fifth-ranked doubles pair with sophomore
Brittney Reed, while Hermsdorf and Kelley – who went 18-4 together last spring – are ranked 14th.
New to the Wildcats' roster are freshmen
Jamie Lee Denton,
Kaysie Hermsdorf (Micah's younger sister) and
Nada Marjanovic, who's arrived at ACU as one of Canada's top-ranked junior players.
“Even though Nada's still very young, she's played a lot of great tennis and we're very fortunate to have her on our team,” said head coach
Hutton Jones. “She received a lot of looks from some major D-I programs before coming here and I feel she'll be a tremendous contributor for years to come.”
The younger Hermsdorf excelled in the fall, going 10-3 in singles and 13-3 in doubles alongside senior
Laura Mongin. She and Mongin went 5-0 to capture the Aggie (New Mexico State) Invitational Championship and later reached the semifinals of the USTA/ITA South Central Regional Championships.
Denton's fall included a 7-5 singles record, which led to a pair of third-place showings at the Kansas and Rice Invitationals.
ACU's men's team added two new players at the semester break,
Marco Bensley of South Africa and
Nicklas Wingord of Argentina. Both of these players were recently ranked among the top-10 players in their respective countries and Jones believes they'll solidify an already talented roster.
“You don't bring in kids from that far away if they can't play,” Jones joked before adding, “but we're going to be much stronger with them on the team. Marco is a quality person with a good work ethic who reminds me a lot of (former South African Wildcat players) George (Carstens) and Casper (Steenkamp). He'll definitely be a contributor.
“Nicklas also is a very good player. He has the skills, but will need time adjusting to the speed of playing on hard courts coming from a clay-court background in Argentina. But I'm confident he'll make those adjustments and will be very tough to beat come April.”
Leading the Wildcats once again is all-America and senior
Hans Hach who earned a No. 2 national ranking after winning a third straight regional title and finishing as the runner-up at the ITA/USTA National Small College Championships.
Hach went 19-3 in singles in the fall with two of his losses coming against NCAA D-I opponents from TCU and Gonzaga. His final loss was to top-ranked Georgi Rumenov of Armstrong Atlantic.
Hach also is ranked third in doubles with sophomore partner Borja Cortés with whom he won two championships en route to a 15-2 record. Hach and Cortés won doubles titles at regionals and New Mexico State, finished third at nationals, and placed second at the Midland Racquet Club Invitational.
Cortés went 7-5 in singles play during his second semester at ACU and will begin the spring ranked 42nd, while senior
Alfredo Desiati starts with a No. 45 ranking. Desiati made Lone Star Conference honorable mention in 2012 after going 17-11 and finishing as the 16th-ranked singles player in the South Central Region.
The men's team begins its invitational vs. Trinity at 9 a.m. and Oklahoma Christian Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
The Eagles of Oklahoma Christian are in their first year as members of the Heartland Conference after spending the last 47 years as a NAIA school. OC won the 2012 NAIA national championship and played exceptionally well at the USTA/ITA South Regional Championships hosted by ACU last October.
Hach beat Oklahoma Christian's Martin Poboril in the regional singles semifinals (6-0, 6-2) and again in the doubles championships with Cortés (6-4, 3-6, 10-6). Poboril and partner Bruno Tiberti entered the tournament as its No. 1 seed.
