Pirates Close Out Hilltoppers, 5-1

With straight-set wins from Sona Novakova, Alida Muller-Wehlau (pictured) and Gabriella Kovacs, the Lady Pirates ended a long first day at the 2009 NCAA Division II Tennis Championships with a 5-1 win over St. Edward's (Texas).

AASU now advances to the quarterfinals, where the Lady Pirates will face California (Pa.) - 5-0 winners over Stonehill - at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday.

Special thanks to the staff at the NCAA and the Rollins College Sports Information staff for making the first day run smoothly, especially with the long matches and the rain delay. They also had to deal with yours truly feeding wrong score updates at times - the scoring system here at Sanlando Park doesn't use flipcards, but a tennis-ball system where you put the balls in the number slot 1-7. Except that they're not using tennis balls, but cut-up portions of blue and yellow fun noodles. Most of the afternoon, I thought the color of the fun noodle represented each team, when in actuality the side of the scoreboard (green - home, white - visitor) determined what the score was. Now that I have the fun noodle system down pat, Thursday should be error free! *Knock on wood*

Have a good night everyone, and we will talk to you on Thursday!