This year, it was Kovacs’ turn.

The junior from Szazhalombatta, Hungary, closed out a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Jessica Yanoff at No. 4 singles to clinch the No. 3-ranked Lady Pirates’ fifth NCAA Division II Women’s Tennis National Championship, 5-2 again, over No. 2-ranked Lynn (28-1) on Saturday afternoon at Sanlando Park in Altamonte Springs, Fla.

The Pirates (28-1) entered singles play needing just three wins, but Lynn won the first set in four of the six singles matches.

AASU now joins BYU-Hawaii (2002, 2003) as the only teams to win Division II Back-to-Back National Championships with both the men’s and the women’s teams. The Lady Pirates have also won back-to-back titles twice in school history, the first coming in 1995 and 1996. AASU evened its mark in NCAA DII National Championship contests at 5-5 – this was the Lady Pirates 10th appearance in the final. Lynn was making its seventh appearance in the finals and is 3-4 in those contests.

The win also avenged a 5-4 loss at Lynn back in March, the only loss this season for the Lady Pirates.

FULL STORY

–Courtesy AASU

The 16 preliminary-round tournaments will be conducted May 7-8, 8-9 or 7-9, with the winner of each preliminary-round tournament advancing to the finals in Altamonte Springs, Florida, hosted by the Central Florida Sports Commission and Rollins College, May 13-16.

The championships consist of a 16-team single elimination tournament. Each of the following eight regions will conduct two preliminary-round tournaments: Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast and West. The selection of teams for the championships is based on prescribed criteria listed in the NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships Handbook and approved by the NCAA Division II Championships Committee.

For information pertaining to teams, dates and sites, please see below for regional brackets.

Twenty-one conferences receive automatic qualification into the 2009 women’s championships. Each conference and its automatic qualifier is listed below:

California Collegiate Athletic Association – UC San Diego
Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference – Philadelphia U.
Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association – Shaw
Conference Carolinas – Erskine
East Coast Conference – Concordia (New York)
Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference – Northwood (Michigan)
Great Lakes Valley Conference – Drury
Gulf South Conference – West Florida
Heartland Conference – St. Edward’s
Lone Star Conference – Abilene Christian
Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association – Northwest Missouri State
Northeast-10 Conference – Stonehill
Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference – St. Cloud State
Pacific West Conference – Brigham Young-Hawaii
Peach Belt Conference – Armstrong Atlantic State
Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference – California (Pennsylvania)
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference – Nebraska-Kearney
South Atlantic Conference – Carson Newman
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference – Tuskegee
Sunshine State Conference – Lynn
West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference – Charleston (West Virginia)

In the finals of the 2008 championships, Armstrong Atlantic State University defeated Lynn, 5-2.

FULL STORY

– Courtesy NCAA.com