CHAMPIONSHIPS
2002: First WCC Championship The Loyola Marymount University women’s tennis team claimed its first ever West Coast Conference championship with a 4-2 upset over top seed Pepperdine at the 2002 WCC Championships. LMU defeated San Diego in the first round of the Championships before advancing to play Pepperdine by way of a victory over Santa Clara. The Lions found themselves in a tough position early in the match as they lost a hard-fought doubles point. Andrea Lord and Angelina Zdorovytska paired to take the number one doubles match 8-1 over Charlotte Vernaz and Veronica Koksova. However, the Waves responded with 8-6 wins in both number two and number three doubles. After Pepperdine took a 1-0 lead with the doubles point, the Lions had to take four of the six single points for the championship. And they did. First Zdorovytska would claim the Lions’ first point of the day with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Aklsandra Kujawska in number four singles. Freshman Georgina Dinham then earned the Lions’ second point with a 6-2, 6-4 straight set win over Anna Anderson at number six singles to give the LMU a 2-1 lead in the match. Pepperdine tied the match at 2-2 when Penka Fileva fell to Monika Horvath at number three singles 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. With the match tied, both the number one and number two single matches would go into the third set. Both Edit Pakay at the number one singles and Lord at number two singles found themselves down one set to start their matches. However, both responded to tie the matches and one set each to establish a dramatic finish. Pakay, who won the second set in a tiebreaker, responded for a 6-2 win in the third to put the Lions one point from the championship.
8 Insider Info: • 2002 News • 2002 REsults • 2002 STATs
As she has done all season, Lord would complete the Lions first title run with a 7-5 win in both the second and third set. “We were talking about making history all week,” said Sanchez. “It was the kind of stuff coaches talk about all the time in these situations, but it worked and we won. This team really learned a lot from the last time we played Pepperdine and I knew if we competed all the way through we could win.”
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