Men’s Tennis posts sweep of major Southland Awards
4/24/2019 2:05:00 PM | Men's Tennis
ABILENE – For the first time in nine years one Southland Conference men's tennis team claimed sole ownership of all four major awards. In 2011, it was Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and in 2019 it's Abilene Christian.
Voted Player of the Year for the first time in his illustrious career was senior Josh Sheehy, while his mentor Hutton Jones received his second Coach of the Year prize in three years.
Jones' strong recruiting also received a hat tip as Freshman of the Year honors went to mid-season addition Dimitris Azoides and Newcomer of the Year plaudits were earned by junior Akinori Wada. Azoides is the third Wildcat in four years to garner the top rookie title, joining brothers Joshua (2016) and Jonathan (2017) Sheehy, and Wada is the second Wildcat voted as the league's best transfer (Hunter Holman in 2016).
But wait … there's more!
Of ACU's nine student-athletes who appeared in at least one Southland Conference dual, seven were voted to an all-conference team. On the singles scene, Josh Sheehy (No. 1) and freshman Riley Tran (No. 5) were first team honorees, while second team citations went to Wada (No. 6) and junior Nikolas Moceanu (No. 3).
The first team doubles column featured two Wildcat tandems with veterans Jackson Fine and Cole Lawson accepting top-line honors, and at No. 3, Moceanu and Jonathan Sheehy shared the honor with New Orleans' Odysseas Papioannou and Nicolas Kramer.
The Wildcats' four Southland first-team selections are their most in program history, doubling their previous total. Borja Cortés and Guilherme Gesser made first team doubles in 2014 and Nico Agritelley was honored for singles play in 2015 and 2016.
The six combined all-conference singles / doubles winners also served as a new program record, breaking the previous mark of four, which was first set in 2014 and duplicated in 2016.
Below are capsules for each of ACU's honorees.
Player of the Year / First Team Singles: Josh Sheehy
A native of Arlington, Texas and graduate of Grace Preparatory Academy, Sheehy completes the regular-season portion collegiate career on top as the Southland Conference's Player of the Year and top-line representative for First Team Singles.
Sheehy won 18 singles matches to bring his career springtime record to 69-28 (.711), and along the way he received four Southland Conference Player of the Week awards in addition to being ranked four different weeks by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
Sheehy attained a career-best No. 100 ranking on March 5 following a three-set win over SMU's Carles Sarrio, and during conference season he went from No. 119 on April 9 to 112 on April 23.
Sheehy has won 13 Southland Conference Player of the Week citations in his career and owns a 13-7 career record vs. league opponents – all at the No. 1 position. In 2016 he was voted Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and made first team doubles at No. 3 with Sebastian Langdon.
The following season he failed to make any all-conference list despite winning a career season high 20 singles matches and leading the team to a share of the league's regular season title, but in 2018 he made second team singles at No. 1 and was voted by ACU's college of coaches to receive the school's prestigious Paul Goad Award (Male MVP).
Sheehy's notable fall season accomplishments include reaching the ITA Texas Regional singles quarterfinals in 2017 and 2018, and being selected as the Southland Conference representative to the ITA Oracle Masters in Malibu, Calif.
Coach of the Year: Hutton Jones
Jones is at the tail end of his 23rd season as a head coach, and in his first season as sole director of the ACU men's team he guided the Wildcats to 21 regular-season victories and their second Southland Conference title in three years. The 2017 Wildcats shared first-place honors with Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi as all had matching 4-1 records, but this spring ACU posted a program-first 5-0 mark against league opposition.
Since 1997 Jones has coached his men's teams to seven 20+ win campaigns and had 16 women's teams reach this plateau between 1999 and 2016. His overall record as an ACU coach now stands at an impressive 939-368 (.718).
Jones was selected by his peers as the men's or women's Lone Star Conference Coach of the Year on several occasions, including Women's Coach of the Year in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2013 and Men's Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2012. He earned his first Southland coaching prize in 2017.
All told, Jones has led ACU's men's and women's programs to 25 conference championships (13 for the women, 12 for the men), 28 NCAA regional championships (17 for the women, 11 for the men) and 28 combined appearances in the NCAA Division II national tournament, including 17 straight for the women's program from 1997-2012.
Freshman of the Year: Dimitris Azoides
The Limassol, Cyprus native joined the Wildcats at the semester break, and rattled off winning streaks of three, seven and four matches to finish second on the team with 17 singles victories.
One of his most impressive triumphs was a No. 3 line win over Juan Martin Jalif (6-4, 5-7, 10-8) over No. 41 Florida State. This win led straight into consecutive Southland Conference victories over New Orleans' Johanne Klein and Lamar's Arthur Serafim.
Azoides would lose his next three league matches – including two in three sets – but rebounded nicely at season's end with a match-clinching point over UTSA's Juri Reckow (5-7, 7-5, 6-4) and Midwestern State's Nolan McCaig (6-4, 6-4).
Azoides played a majority (13) of his matches at No. 4, where he went 9-4, but he also scored two wins at No. 2 and went 5-1 while at No. 3.
Newcomer of the Year / Second Team Singles: Akinori Wada
With several veterans battling injuries at various times this spring, Collin County Community College transfer Wada helped stabilize the back end of the Wildcats' lineup with seven wins though 10 matches.
Born in Japan and raised in New South Wales, Australia, Wada went 3-1 against Southland Conference competition. He started this late-season run with a three-set win over Alvaro Barrano of Nicholls and later beat Lamar's Brock Laure, 6-1, 6-2 and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Thibault Frumholtz, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
Wada started the spring with four-consecutive non-confernece triumphs, beating opposition from Colorado State - Pueblo, Montana, SMU and Arkansas-Pine Bluff but had his winning streak snapped at No. 41 Florida State.
All-Conference Singles
Riley Tran: Colleyville, Texas, native Tran was another very impressive first-year player on the Wildcats' roster, going 14-9 in singles and tying for the team lead with 13 doubles triumphs.
Tran and Moceanu went 7-3 (2-0 Southland) in doubles. He also won three matches alongside Josh Sheehy, two with Azoides and one with classmate Michael Benavides vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Tran's singles ledger features a three-set win over Pepperdine's Pawl Jankowiak, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2, and a four-match winning streak to begin Southland Conference competition, beating opposition from Nicholls, New Orleans, Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. His last two league wins were in three sets, while his triumph over UNO's Nicholas Kramer was settled in a second-set tiebreak, 6-2, 7-6 (8).
Nikolas Moceanu: The second-year Wildcat from The Woodlands, Texas stretched all five of his conference battles to a three set and exited as victor four times, beating the competition from Nicholls, New Orleans, Lamar and UIW.
Moceanu also went to a third set against opposition from No. 9 Texas A&M, No. 41 Florida State and UTSA as part of a 13-6 overall record.
Moceanu was sidelined with an injury that kept him out most of February, but he returned in mid-March to finish the season at 7-3. Earlier in the year he picked up wins at No. 3 vs. Pepperdine's Matias Sborowitz and Oral Roberts' Marcllo Moreira.
All-Conference Doubles
Jackson Fine / Cole Lawson: One of the season's best under-the-radar stories involved the tandem of Fine and Lawson, who attained First Team All-Conference doubles honors at No. 1 despite having played only once together the previous two springs.
Even more incredible about their rise together is that Fine – a junior from Bixby, Okla. – entered this year with only two spring singles matches and four doubles contests under his belt, while Lawson – a senior from Spring, Texas – was part of five different combinations since his freshman year of 2016.
Fine and Lawson played much of the season together and led their squad with nine wins, three of which came at the top line vs. the Southland Conference. They started with a 6-4 victory over Nicholls, followed with a 7-6 (5) win over UNO, and topped UIW, 6-4. In between they had two unfinished matches vs. Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi that ended in 6-6 ties.
Nikolas Moceanu / Jonathan Sheehy: This duo was not paired until the team's Spring Break trip to No. 41 Florida State, where they lost at No. 3, 6-3, to the team of Richard Thongoana and Juan Martin Jalif. They then were put together twice during conference play and came away with third-line wins over New Orleans and Incarnate Word.
Voted Player of the Year for the first time in his illustrious career was senior Josh Sheehy, while his mentor Hutton Jones received his second Coach of the Year prize in three years.
Jones' strong recruiting also received a hat tip as Freshman of the Year honors went to mid-season addition Dimitris Azoides and Newcomer of the Year plaudits were earned by junior Akinori Wada. Azoides is the third Wildcat in four years to garner the top rookie title, joining brothers Joshua (2016) and Jonathan (2017) Sheehy, and Wada is the second Wildcat voted as the league's best transfer (Hunter Holman in 2016).
But wait … there's more!
Of ACU's nine student-athletes who appeared in at least one Southland Conference dual, seven were voted to an all-conference team. On the singles scene, Josh Sheehy (No. 1) and freshman Riley Tran (No. 5) were first team honorees, while second team citations went to Wada (No. 6) and junior Nikolas Moceanu (No. 3).
The first team doubles column featured two Wildcat tandems with veterans Jackson Fine and Cole Lawson accepting top-line honors, and at No. 3, Moceanu and Jonathan Sheehy shared the honor with New Orleans' Odysseas Papioannou and Nicolas Kramer.
The Wildcats' four Southland first-team selections are their most in program history, doubling their previous total. Borja Cortés and Guilherme Gesser made first team doubles in 2014 and Nico Agritelley was honored for singles play in 2015 and 2016.
The six combined all-conference singles / doubles winners also served as a new program record, breaking the previous mark of four, which was first set in 2014 and duplicated in 2016.
Below are capsules for each of ACU's honorees.
Player of the Year / First Team Singles: Josh Sheehy
A native of Arlington, Texas and graduate of Grace Preparatory Academy, Sheehy completes the regular-season portion collegiate career on top as the Southland Conference's Player of the Year and top-line representative for First Team Singles.
Sheehy won 18 singles matches to bring his career springtime record to 69-28 (.711), and along the way he received four Southland Conference Player of the Week awards in addition to being ranked four different weeks by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
Sheehy attained a career-best No. 100 ranking on March 5 following a three-set win over SMU's Carles Sarrio, and during conference season he went from No. 119 on April 9 to 112 on April 23.
Sheehy has won 13 Southland Conference Player of the Week citations in his career and owns a 13-7 career record vs. league opponents – all at the No. 1 position. In 2016 he was voted Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and made first team doubles at No. 3 with Sebastian Langdon.
The following season he failed to make any all-conference list despite winning a career season high 20 singles matches and leading the team to a share of the league's regular season title, but in 2018 he made second team singles at No. 1 and was voted by ACU's college of coaches to receive the school's prestigious Paul Goad Award (Male MVP).
Sheehy's notable fall season accomplishments include reaching the ITA Texas Regional singles quarterfinals in 2017 and 2018, and being selected as the Southland Conference representative to the ITA Oracle Masters in Malibu, Calif.
Coach of the Year: Hutton Jones
Jones is at the tail end of his 23rd season as a head coach, and in his first season as sole director of the ACU men's team he guided the Wildcats to 21 regular-season victories and their second Southland Conference title in three years. The 2017 Wildcats shared first-place honors with Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi as all had matching 4-1 records, but this spring ACU posted a program-first 5-0 mark against league opposition.
Since 1997 Jones has coached his men's teams to seven 20+ win campaigns and had 16 women's teams reach this plateau between 1999 and 2016. His overall record as an ACU coach now stands at an impressive 939-368 (.718).
Jones was selected by his peers as the men's or women's Lone Star Conference Coach of the Year on several occasions, including Women's Coach of the Year in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2013 and Men's Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2012. He earned his first Southland coaching prize in 2017.
All told, Jones has led ACU's men's and women's programs to 25 conference championships (13 for the women, 12 for the men), 28 NCAA regional championships (17 for the women, 11 for the men) and 28 combined appearances in the NCAA Division II national tournament, including 17 straight for the women's program from 1997-2012.
Freshman of the Year: Dimitris Azoides
The Limassol, Cyprus native joined the Wildcats at the semester break, and rattled off winning streaks of three, seven and four matches to finish second on the team with 17 singles victories.
One of his most impressive triumphs was a No. 3 line win over Juan Martin Jalif (6-4, 5-7, 10-8) over No. 41 Florida State. This win led straight into consecutive Southland Conference victories over New Orleans' Johanne Klein and Lamar's Arthur Serafim.
Azoides would lose his next three league matches – including two in three sets – but rebounded nicely at season's end with a match-clinching point over UTSA's Juri Reckow (5-7, 7-5, 6-4) and Midwestern State's Nolan McCaig (6-4, 6-4).
Azoides played a majority (13) of his matches at No. 4, where he went 9-4, but he also scored two wins at No. 2 and went 5-1 while at No. 3.
Newcomer of the Year / Second Team Singles: Akinori Wada
With several veterans battling injuries at various times this spring, Collin County Community College transfer Wada helped stabilize the back end of the Wildcats' lineup with seven wins though 10 matches.
Born in Japan and raised in New South Wales, Australia, Wada went 3-1 against Southland Conference competition. He started this late-season run with a three-set win over Alvaro Barrano of Nicholls and later beat Lamar's Brock Laure, 6-1, 6-2 and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Thibault Frumholtz, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
Wada started the spring with four-consecutive non-confernece triumphs, beating opposition from Colorado State - Pueblo, Montana, SMU and Arkansas-Pine Bluff but had his winning streak snapped at No. 41 Florida State.
All-Conference Singles
Riley Tran: Colleyville, Texas, native Tran was another very impressive first-year player on the Wildcats' roster, going 14-9 in singles and tying for the team lead with 13 doubles triumphs.
Tran and Moceanu went 7-3 (2-0 Southland) in doubles. He also won three matches alongside Josh Sheehy, two with Azoides and one with classmate Michael Benavides vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Tran's singles ledger features a three-set win over Pepperdine's Pawl Jankowiak, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2, and a four-match winning streak to begin Southland Conference competition, beating opposition from Nicholls, New Orleans, Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. His last two league wins were in three sets, while his triumph over UNO's Nicholas Kramer was settled in a second-set tiebreak, 6-2, 7-6 (8).
Nikolas Moceanu: The second-year Wildcat from The Woodlands, Texas stretched all five of his conference battles to a three set and exited as victor four times, beating the competition from Nicholls, New Orleans, Lamar and UIW.
Moceanu also went to a third set against opposition from No. 9 Texas A&M, No. 41 Florida State and UTSA as part of a 13-6 overall record.
Moceanu was sidelined with an injury that kept him out most of February, but he returned in mid-March to finish the season at 7-3. Earlier in the year he picked up wins at No. 3 vs. Pepperdine's Matias Sborowitz and Oral Roberts' Marcllo Moreira.
All-Conference Doubles
Jackson Fine / Cole Lawson: One of the season's best under-the-radar stories involved the tandem of Fine and Lawson, who attained First Team All-Conference doubles honors at No. 1 despite having played only once together the previous two springs.
Even more incredible about their rise together is that Fine – a junior from Bixby, Okla. – entered this year with only two spring singles matches and four doubles contests under his belt, while Lawson – a senior from Spring, Texas – was part of five different combinations since his freshman year of 2016.
Fine and Lawson played much of the season together and led their squad with nine wins, three of which came at the top line vs. the Southland Conference. They started with a 6-4 victory over Nicholls, followed with a 7-6 (5) win over UNO, and topped UIW, 6-4. In between they had two unfinished matches vs. Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi that ended in 6-6 ties.
Nikolas Moceanu / Jonathan Sheehy: This duo was not paired until the team's Spring Break trip to No. 41 Florida State, where they lost at No. 3, 6-3, to the team of Richard Thongoana and Juan Martin Jalif. They then were put together twice during conference play and came away with third-line wins over New Orleans and Incarnate Word.
Players Mentioned
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