Sophomore Siobhan Finicane of the Pomona-Pitzer Women's Tennis team won the NCAA Division III singles title at Gustavus Adolphus University in Minnesota, the first singles title for Pomona-Pitzer since 1994. Finicane, who was top-seeded, defeated the fifth-seeded Cary Gibson of Williams 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 to win the title.
Rebecca Lange '09 and Women's Tennis Coach Ann Lebedeff were also honored by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association in their Division III national awards, which were announced at a banquet on May 12. Lebedeff, who just this April reached her 500th career win, was named Wilson/ITA Coach of the Year for the nation. Lange was honored with the ITA/Arthur Ashe Award for Leadership & Sportsmanship for the Western region, an achievement that recognizes the players who have exhibited outstanding sportsmanship and leadership, as well as scholastic, extracurricular and tennis achievements.
This has been a stellar year for the Women's Tennis Team. Pomona-Pitzer ranked fourth in the NCAA Division III team championships; doubles ranking for the individual phase is still to be determined, but Coach Lebedeff predicts that Finicane and her partner Olivia Muesse '10 will land in the national top five. Three players also achieved All-American status for the 2007-08 season: Finicane (singles and doubles), Lange (singles) and Muesse (doubles).
The team also beat the University of Redlands twice in both the SCIAC Conference title (which it received in April) and in the NCAA Regional team finals. Finicane was named the MVP for SCIAC Women’s Tennis. Lange and Muesse were first team SCIAC conference, and Kathryn Myers ‘09 was named on the second team conference.
“I am so proud of this team's accomplishments. We played one of the toughest schedules in the country, and our improvement from January to May was extraordinary,” says Lebedeff. “For this team to finish in the top four teams (from around 370 NCAA Division III teams in the country) in the nation and to top it off with Siobhan's singles championship makes the 2007-08 season a very memorable one."
