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Small college players take Superbowl to Indoors
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ITA Small College Superbowl winners.
Photos courtesy of ITA Tennis.
There isn't another tournament like it. It's a college tennis event in a category of its own and it's deserving of duplication in other sports. The event I'm referring to is the ITA National Small College Championships, a tournament that involves every college division.
The ITA National Small College Championship has a very unique setup. It brings together players from NCAA Division II and III, along with NAIA and NJUCO (junior college) through two different events. Then, gives them the opportunity to play against NCAA Division I players .
After competing in and winning regional events, players descended on the Copeland-Cox Tennis Center in Mobile, Alabama, last week to compete for national titles in their division. Singles and doubles winners are declared for each of the tournament's four small colleges. And then it gets really interesting. The four winners get to play against each other in the mixed division draws, producing "Superbowl" champions in singles and doubles.
At this year's event, Sona Novakova of Armstrong Atlantic defending last year's NCAA Division II title and took it one step further to win the women's singles Superbowl. Damian Hume of Collin County Community College (NJUCO) was the men's singles Superbowl winner. Doubles went to two NAIA teams, Alberto Gonzales & Michael Johnson of Auburn-Montgomery and Katia Sabate & Vanessa Heroux of Fresno Pacific.
To make the ITA National Small College Championships even more inteesting, there's a twist that involves the final college tennis division -- NCAA Division I. The Superbowl winners at this tournament receive wildcards into the ITA National Indoors, to be held at Yale University November 5-8th. There they are able to have a rare opportunity to play against the top DI players in the country.
Also at the Small College Championships, the 2009 James O'Hara Sargent Sportsmanship Awards went to Damian Hume and the University of Chicago's Kedra Higgins. For complete results from the event, visit the official webpage at ITA Tennis.
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