ABILENE – Abilene Christian's move to NCAA Division I athletics comes with a new regional assignment from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The Wildcats, which absolutely dominated the South Central Region with a combined 11 doubles and singles titles since 2010, are now part of a Texas-only region that features nationally-ranked programs from Baylor, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech in addition to new Southland Conference rivals Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
The women's ITA Regional runs from Thursday, Oct. 17 to Monday, Oct. 21 and will be hosted by TCU's Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center & Bartzen Varsity Courts in Fort Worth, while the men's tournament runs from Saturday, Oct. 19 to Tuesday, Oct. 22 at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center.
Representing the Wildcats in Waco will be juniors Borja Cortés,
Guilherme Gesser and
Michael Morris, sophomores
Jason Proctor and
Nicklas Wingord and freshman
Nico Agritelley. ACU's women's team at TCU will be comprised of seniors
Emily Conrad and
Micah Hermsdorf, junior
Brittney Reed, sophomores
Kaysie Hermsdorf and
Nada Marjanovic, and freshmen
Ansley Boarman and
Erin Walker.
None of the Wildcats are foreign to this high level of competition as nearly all of them were entered into prestigious invitations hosted earlier this fall by the Midland Racquet Club and Rice University. ACU head coach
Hutton Jones also has repeatedly scheduled many of these same teams over the past three springs. Since 2011, the Wildcats have regularly faced Baylor, Lamar, UTEP and Rice in addition to longtime rival Incarnate Word, which made the jump with ACU from the Lone Star to the Southland Conference.
ACU's current roster also has faced teams from UTSA, Sam Houston State, Texas and Texas A&M. Incredibly; ACU's women have gone 9-1 in dual competition vs. DI teams since 2011, while the men have gone 10-10.
Through three weekends of fall tournaments, ACU's women have compiled a 21-15 singles record and 12-16 mark in doubles.
Micah Hermsdorf leads the team with five singles wins and close behind are
Kaysie Hermsdorf and
Erin Walker with four. Walker won the Flight 4 Finals two weeks ago at Rice and was a quarterfinalist at an invitational hosted by Boise State. The youngest daughter of ACU assistant coach
John Walker, Erin began her Wildcat career with an upset win over Baylor's Viktoryia Kisialeva, 3-6, 6-4 (1-0), at Midland.
The Wildcat men, meanwhile, are a combined 32-28 in singles and 23-24 in doubles. Cortés has the team's most singles wins with seven and is 5-3 as the doubles partner of Gesser. After reaching the third round of the Midland back draw, Cortés placed second at the New Mexico State Invitational and reached the finals of the UT-Chattanooga Tournament against teammate
Nicklas Wingord.
Wingord, who is second on the team with six wins, went 3-2 at Midland in reaching the back draw semifinals and later went 3-0 at UT-Chattanooga.
