Lespes Claims Regional Singles title

ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. - Seward County Community College's Justine Lespes defeats Isid Hernandez from Cowley College to claim the Regional Singles Championship and punch a ticket to the National tournament. Lespes enters her second semester with the Saints and continues her success into the fall season. Lespes will travel to Rome, Georgia to compete in the ITA JUCO National tournament on October 15th through the 17th.

The Regional Tournament was made up of two draws one for singles and one for doubles. Every player available to play was placed and ranked into two separate draws and the winners from each draw received an automatic bid for the National tournament. The three-day tournament started on Friday, September 24th and the Saints had seven athletes in the singles draw, and three teams in the doubles draw.

In the singles draw five Saints fell in their opening round matches and had just three move on. Chiara Matteodo and Carol Mora made it into the quarterfinals but both lost to a Cowley opponent. Lespes went on to win her first two matches to move onto the semifinals on day two of the event. On the second day, Lespes won 6-2, 6-1 to advance to the finals where she beat Cowley College to claim the singles title on Sunday, September 26th.

In the doubles draw, Alejandra Sandoval and SaskiaVogelzang lost their first match against Cowley and went into the consolation bracket. Lespes and Mora won their first match to advance to the semifinals but lost to Cowley fall out of the draw. Lucia Popluharova and Matteodo won their first-round match but fell on the second day of the draw. 

We will have more information on how to keep up with the results at Nationals as the tournament is fully established.