Image: georgiadogs.comThe tennis team won the program's sixth national championship last night, their first title won in any place other than Athens. Texas fought a valiant match. At times, it looked pretty bleak for the Dawgs after Texas took the double point and won three first sets in singles. In Monday's match against Virginia, Jamie Hunt provided the clincher. Last night it was on the number 1 court, as former Longhorn and senior Travis Helgeson sewed up a championship. Helgeson's match was went back and forth all night, but after he got down 1-3 in the third set it was as if he decided he wasn't going to lose another game. And he didn't, winning five straight games. He showed why he was at the one spot, gutting out a tough match.
A championship is always good, but it must have been especially sweet for seniors Helgeson and Luis Flores. Helgeson clinched a win over his former team. Flores, who considered turning pro after last year's championship, battled a foot injury all year, but played some fantastic tennis during the NCAA tournament.
Congrats, Dawgs.
A championship is always good, but it must have been especially sweet for seniors Helgeson and Luis Flores. Helgeson clinched a win over his former team. Flores, who considered turning pro after last year's championship, battled a foot injury all year, but played some fantastic tennis during the NCAA tournament.
Congrats, Dawgs.
Quinton
14 comments:
I'm first! I'm not even really a tennis fan but that was very exciting to watch. My roommate thought I was nuts since she's never heard a peep out of me about tennis in the past.
We've kicked ass this Spring:
SECBB Tourney Champs
SEC Baseball Champs
NCAA W Gymnastics
NCAA M Tennis
NCAA W Equestrian
Damn!
Coach was right prior to the tournament when he proclaimed "nobody wants to play us in this tournament". Doubles point was kind of a shock in that Texas really front-ran those matches for the most part. Nate really took care of business at 2 and against his good friend at that. Jamie followed suit and did what he has done all year and got a victory. Luis rebounded superbly in the third and rolled his opponent, and Travis found a rhythm late in the third which carried the day. Congratulations to the Dawgs. This was one hard fought title that was earned all year long.
Even though I love the fact that the Dawgs won the title, we didn't deserve it. Mens Tennis totally DEVALUES the REGULAR SEASON. We were only 5th in the polls heading into the tournament.
:)
This should help us here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACDA_Director's_Cup#NCAA_Division_I
+1 Mr-too-long-of-a-blogger-name.
In other National Championship news, the Mens and Womens golf teams both have a better than average chance of winning their respective NCs, plus Georgia Softball and Baseball are still rolling in the postseason...looks like a good spring could still get better.
according to the standings in the Director's cup, we need to add some sports...there's no reason Stanford should get that much credit for competing in sports that nobody else competes in...especially considering all the Men's sports that Title IX basically wiped out
Cash-mag man, funny point, but...uh, it does devalue the regular season. Were we a better tennis team in 2008 than Virginia? No. We were better on Tuesday. Glad we got the title, but it really makes a non-playoff point. Basically, our regular season was nothing more than a warm up for the "real" season of the playoffs.
In any event, we knew the system we were going into, and congrats to Coach Diaz and the net dawgs. Me loves hangin' them banners.
So this made me wonder about something I thought I heard in orientation last fall. Does UGA have the most D1 championships out of any school?
Re: ryan: Per this article, I think it's UCLA (with something like 102 National Championships).
Nope. Not even close. All those west coast schools like UCLA & Stanford play a bunch of sports no one else plays. Check out
http://www.ncaa.org/champadmin/champs_listing1.html
But, we certainly have an athletic department to be proud of.
"But, we certainly have an athletic department to be proud of."
And one that's in the black in the accounting books.
How many on that Director's Cup list can say that?
Also, when it comes to the Cup standings, doesn't Stanford get to drop their twelve worst sports when calculating their score whereas UGA doesn't have twelve or even one to drop? If true, this is why Stanford wins it every year.
Wow. I am really shocked at the athletic prowess of UCLA with their 19 championships in MEN'S volleyball and stanford's 11 water polo championships. But I guess numbers really aren't everything...
Right on Dawg19. We make money, and we seem to do it right. We've got top notch coaches in almost every sport. Coach Dooley set the precedent, and Damon has taken it to another level.
As for all the titles, that's kind of the nature of college athletics. I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, we don't want to look at the number of teams that actually have women's gymnastics, because it's not many. But the important thing is to be competitive in what you have, no matter who the competion. Really, there's not much missing from our resume, except:
-A MNC in football
-Another baseball natty title (or at least play in the finals)
-A women's basketball title
-A deep run by the men's basketball team
-A deep run by the softball team
-An SEC title in Volleyball & Soccer
We've got a shot at 2 or 3 of those in the next 365 days.
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