Women's tennis reaches first Sweet 16; run ends with difficult loss to Texas

Tech's women's tennis team ended the season as the No. 6 team in the nation after advancing to the school's first ever Sweet 16. The team rounded off the year by winning the ACC regular season and the ACC Tournament. The Tournament win was the school's first conference championship in tennis. The Jackets season came to an end at the rackets of eventual national runner-up Texas (4-3), and the team concluded their season with a record of 21-4.

The Jackets captured the ACC regular season title after tying Miami with a 9-1 record in the league, but held the tiebreaker after defeating the Hurricanes earlier in the season. The team clinched the title with a 5-2 victory over North Carolina.

"It seems like every time our backs are against the wall, we are finding the answers out there on the court," Head Coach Bryan Shelton said as reported by ramblinwreck.com. "After losing yesterday to Duke and knowing that we had to come in here and win today to get that title, we really stepped up big."

Tech followed up by winning the ACC Tournament. Tech knocked off Florida State 4-1 to reach the semifinals where they defeated North Carolina 4-2. Junior Lyndsay Shosho clinched each of the matches for the Jackets.

"After dropping the first set, I thought that there was no way I was going down," said Shosho. "I thought that I still had so much left in me to give, so I came out in the second set and fought from the first point on."

They met up the Hurricanes in ACC Championship final. After picking up the doubles point, the Jackets lost the first three single matches but battled back and won the final three matches of the day. Alison Silverio captured the Most Valuable Player honors for the tournament.

"I think it's so hard to win an ACC title and it's hard enough to get into the finals, much less complete the task by winning the tournament," Shelton said. "The girls on the court are the ones that got it done though, they deserve all of the credit."

The Jackets were selected to host a regional after being selected as the sixth-seeded team in the nation. The team breezed through the regional defeating Winthrop (4-0) and Pepperdine (4-0) to advance to the Jacket's first Sweet 16.

"I'm really proud of this team," Shelton said. "It's been a great season. The girls played well, and it was a convincing win, which feels good. We took care of the doubles point, and then we got off to a good start in the singles and were able to close the door at the end."

Tech's run ended with a 4-3 loss to the eventual national runner-up Texas Longhorns. After winning the doubles point, each of the singles matches stayed close until the end.

The No. 17 doubles team of Miller and Silverio qualified as an at-large for the doubles tournament that was held in Athens last week. Miller and Silverio ran into the No. 9 Florida doubles team and fell (6-4, 6-1). They finished the season as the top doubles team in Tech history with an overall record of 26-13.

Freshman All-American Miller advanced to the Sweet 16 in the singles competition. Miller's campaign came to an end against Northwestern's Audra Cohen (6-3, 2-6, 6-0). Miller's 42 wins this season breaks the previous Tech record of 30 that was set by Bobbi Guthrie (1997-98) and Jaime Wong (2000-01).

Tech will be returning every player next season with the exception of Baylor transfer Dasha Potapova who was the No. 2 singles player on the team this season.