No. 2 Last Year, Pomona Women Will Try Harder

The Cal Poly Pomona women’s tennis team went into the NCAA Division II national tournament last year with the top seeding and the best record, only to fall to UC Davis in the championship match.

The Broncos have another chance for a national title when they take the No. 1 seeding into the 1991 NCAA Division II Women’s Tennis Championships that start Friday at the Gold River Racquet Club in Rancho Cordova.

The Broncos (18-5) will play eighth-seeded Air Force (20-6) in the quarterfinals at 9 a.m. Friday. The semifinals are Saturday and the final is Sunday.

Coach Ann Lebedeff said the team has a different feeling entering the national tournament this time.

“We had players that had never been to nationals last year, so it was a really new thing for them,” she said. “This year there are more expectations because we were No. 1 last year.”

Senior Cindy Hamnquist, who is paired with senior Onnaca Heron on the top-rated doubles team in Division II, said the road to the national tournament has not been as easy for the Broncos as it was last year.

“I think it’s a little different this time only because last year we played well the whole season and we went in 24-2 and this year it was a little more frustrating for us at the start of the year,” she said. “We’ve had to work a little harder to get there.”

It was a struggle early in the season for the Broncos, who dropped three of their first six matches, including losses to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Davis in February.

Lebedeff, in her third season as coach of the Broncos, said the team has been playing with more confidence since the start of April. It was the first week of April when Pomona defeated San Luis Obispo, 5-4, to win a tournament, and the Broncos duplicated the feat with a 5-4 victory over San Luis Obispo in a California Collegiate Athletic Assn. match April 13.

“I think it’s taken us a whole spring to gain our confidence,” she said. “We’ve been playing a lot better since the tournament in April, and I think a lot of it was we had to go out with confidence every time we played. Each player had to feel confident that they could win at their level, and they have.”

The Broncos have been led by the play of Heron, Cyndi Hurzeler and Donna Ewing in singles and the doubles teams of Heron-Hamnquist and Ewing-Hurzeler.

Heron may be the most successful of the group, having earned Division II All-American honors as a sophomore and a junior. She has a singles record of 15-8 in dual matches.

“Onnaca’s had a great year but so have some other people on our team,” Lebedeff said. “I don’t like to single out one person.”

Pomona also has two other All-American performers in Hamnquist and Ewing, who teamed to reach the Division II semifinals in doubles last season.

Lebedeff said the strength of the Broncos has been their depth.

“If we’ve had anything work for us, it’s that we’ve always had one of the six or seven girls on the team contribute,” she said. “Everyone has contributed, even the girls who don’t play.”

Lebedeff said she has been particularly impressed with the performance of her doubles teams this season.

“We get along very well on and off the court,” Hamnquist said. “I feel really secure, especially with our No. 1 and 2 doubles team. If it comes down to our doubles teams, like it did against San Luis Obispo, I feel real confident.”

Considering that San Luis Obispo is second seeded in the national tournament, it would not be surprising if the battle for the title came down to doubles play between the teams.

Lebedeff thinks her team will also benefit from having finished second last season.

“We were second last year, so we know what it’s like to be there and this year we want to win,” she said. “I think being second last year has been a motivating factor for us this year. There’s nothing like being in the national finals, anyway.”

Hamnquist said the tournament is especially meaningful for the four seniors on the team, including herself. The others are Heron, Ewing and Hurzeler.

“For us it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and something we’ll probably never experience again.

“We’re right where we want to be and we got a great place in the draw. We couldn’t ask for anything more. We just have to finish it off.”

With the regular season winding down, the closest baseball race in the college division continues to be in the CCAA.

Entering this week’s play, with six conference games remaining for most teams, there are three teams within half a game of each other. UC Riverside (13-9) is percentage points ahead of Cal Poly Pomona (14-10) and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is right behind at 13-10.

Cal State Dominguez Hills is also is the title picture at 12-12, two games behind the first-place Highlanders.

Riverside does not have an easy task ahead. The Highlanders must play San Luis Obispo for three games Friday through Sunday before closing out their CCAA schedule with three against Pomona May 9-11.

Pomona, ranked No. 4 in the NCAA Division II by Collegiate Baseball magazine, must play five of its last six games on the road, where the Broncos have won only five of 24 games this season.

Two other conference races are a little more certain. Azusa Pacific has clinched at least a share of the Golden State Athletic Conference title with a 13-5 record, and Redlands has clinched a share of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title at 14-4.

In addition, two independents are also having outstanding seasons.

Cal Lutheran has the best record of any team in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 at 28-7 and Cal State San Bernardino is the top NCAA Division III team in the Southland at 22-8.

College Division Notes

It figures to be a preview of the NCAA Division III West Regional in baseball when Redlands plays host to Cal State San Bernardino in a nonconference game today. Redlands, which has an overall mark of 19-17, suffered a 21-8 loss to San Bernardino on Feb. 15 in San Bernardino. . . . In addition to Cal Poly Pomona-Air Force, second-seeded Cal Poly San Luis Obispo takes on Shippensburg of Pennsylvania and Cal State Bakersfield faces third-seeded UC Davis in the first round of the NCAA Division II women’s tennis tournament Friday. . . . Pomona-Pitzer has climbed to No. 1 ahead of previous leader Gustavus Adolphus of Minnesota in the latest NCAA Division III women’s rankings. The Sagehens also have the top-ranked doubles team of Shelley Keeler and Caryn Cranston.