Allegheny Earns Top Seed for PAC Women's Tennis Tournament

Tournament Starts Oct. 17th with Quarterfinal Play

10/13/2023 12:00:00 PM

TRAFFORD, Pa. (pacathletics.org) - After going undefeated through conference regular season play, Allegheny College has earned the top seed and home court advantage throughout the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) Women's Tennis Championship Tournament, which gets underway Tuesday, Oct. 17, with quarterfinal action.

This season, all rounds will use the nine-point team format with the first team to five (5) individual matches moving forward.

In Tuesday's quarterfinal round, No. 3 Franciscan University (8-3, 6-2 PAC) will host No. 6 Saint Vincent College (9-5, 3-5 PAC) , while No. 4 Westminster College (9-4, 5-3 PAC) will host No. 5 Washington & Jefferson College (5-5, 4-4 PAC).

Top-seeded Allegheny (9-1, 8-0 PAC) and No. 2 Grove City College (10-3, 7-1 PAC) will receive quarterfinal byes. On Thursday, the winner of the No. 4 Westminster-No. 5 W&J quarterfinal will head to Meadville to take on the Gators, while the winner of the No. 3 Franciscan-No. 6 Saint Vincent quarterfinal will travel to Grove City to take on the Wolverines.

The championship match will be Saturday, Oct. 21st at the highest remaining seed.

After a 38-year run as a founding member of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), Allegheny, who was a PAC member from 1958 through 1984, reentered the conference last fall. In their first season back, the Gators captured their initial PAC title in program history in a 5-4 thriller over Franciscan in the championship match last October. 

Allegheny, led by third-year head coach Dave Hayden, went 8-0 in PAC regular season matches to secure this year's top seed. The Gators dropped a match against Division II Edinboro University in their opener and have rolled off nine consecutive victories to post a 9-1 record and earn the top spot for the PAC Tournament. 

Allegheny senior Jean-Arlette Legrand (San Juan, Puerto Rico/Commonwealth Parkville School), last week's PAC Player of the Week, posted a 6-2 record in league matches at #1 singles, while a pair of freshmen were unbeaten in conference singles play. Freshman Emiliia Grydnieva (Kyiv, Ukraine/Optima) had a 6-0 conference record at No. 2 singles and freshman Rei Etsumi (Honolulu, Hawaii/President William McKinley), a three-time PAC Newcomer of the Week, was 8-0 in singles while splitting time at No. 4 and No. 5.

Grove City, who has won three in a row and eight of their last nine coming into the PAC Tournament, is led by fourth-year head coach Nathaniel Horner. Wolverine freshman Catherine Petrovich (Fox Chapel, Pa./IMG Academy-Fla.) has a 4-1 PAC record at first singles. Another first-year, Peyton Joines, (Glen Rock, Pa./Susquehannock), has wins in three flights in compiling a 6-1 conference record, while junior Janel McCray (Jessop, Md./Hammond) is 5-1 in PAC singles play.

Winners of the previous two PAC titles prior to last year's runner-up finish, Franciscan is led by senior Maria Herrera (Houston, Texas/Clear Brook), the reigning two-time PAC Player of the Year who posted an 8-0 league record at No. 1 singles this fall.

This is the sixth year the PAC Championship Tournament will feature a team championship bracket format, with Tuesday's quarterfinal round, Thursday's semifinal round and Saturday's championship match. The league had previously sponsored a flighted championship, with individual players and doubles pairings exclusively seeded and not based on a team's regular-season finish, since supporting a full complement of women's sports (1985-2017). 

This year's tournament champion will secure the PAC's automatic qualifying bid to the Division III Championships. Team selections will be announced Monday, April 29, 2024. The first round of the Division III Championships is scheduled for Friday, May 3.