College Feature
USC Men, UCLA Women Reign in Division I Team Championships
by
Colette Lewis, 23 May 2014
| Share: |  |
|  | |
|
|
The 2014 NCAA Division I Team Championships in Athens, Georgia featured plenty of rain and two new faces in the final, but when Tuesday came to close, the Pac-12 had secured both titles.
Top seed
University of Southern California defeated No. 2 seed
Oklahoma 4-2 to claim its fifth men's title in the past six years, while No. 5 seed
UCLA won its second women's championship with a scintillating 4-3 victory over No. 7 seed
North Carolina.
Rain on the first day of the championships sent half the women's round of 16 matches indoors, with two played at the Lindsey Hopkins courts at the University of Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Center and the other two played at the new Bill Moore Indoor Tennis Center at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Three days later, the men's quarterfinals could not play a single point outdoors, with the two facilities again in use all day.
But the skies cleared for the semifinals Monday, when the North Carolina women ousted defending champion Stanford 4-3, with superstar freshman Jamie Loeb putting the Tar Heels in their first NCAA title match with a 6-7(4), 6-0, 6-0 victory over Kristie Ahn at No. 1.
UCLA's 4-0 victory over No. 8 Florida, who had taken out top seed Georgia 4-1 in the quarterfinals, was much more difficult than the score suggests, with the Gators extending the Bruins at the bottom of the lineup, but unable to secure a point.
The final began with the Bruins taking the doubles point, as they had done in every match they played this year.
UCLA's Catherine Harrison and Kyle McPhillips won at No. 2 doubles in dominating fashion, beating Caroline Price and Whitney Kay 8-2. At No. 1, UCLA's Robin Anderson and Jennifer Brady had seen their 5-3 advantage slip away against Jamie Loeb and Hayley Carter, but Brady and Anderson, the nation's top-ranked team, took the tiebreaker 8-7(3) to give UCLA the 1-0 lead.
