The Tour Begins - Downtown Rotary Club in Savannah

One of the absolutely best things about the National Championship is that you get to take the instantly recognizable trophies on tour. Just 24 hours after the Armstrong tennis teams stepped off the plane in returning to Savannah, several members of both teams were invited to join the Downtown Rotary Club of Savannah for lunch as guests of University President Dr. Linda Bleicken.

The Pirates were recognized by the Rotary Club during the lunch and got to hear Jason Freier, Chief Executive Officer of Hardball Capital LLC - owner of the Savannah Sand Gnats - talk about the proposed new multi-purpose park in Downtown Savannah that they want to build to not only be the new home of the club but home to several other yearly events as well, including possibly collegiate sporting events. Trust me, not your typical speaker on the occasions that we get called to be recognized. It was very informative and paints a pretty good picture of what the future of sporting events - and entertainment - in Savannah could look like.

Unfortunately, today also is the first day that our players start to disperse and head back home for the summer. But some will still be here, taking classes or working in Savannah so we hope to have future recognition for the Pirates soon. In fact, tomorrow night, Connect Savannah will be having its yearly Best of Savannah celebration. Remember, last year the Pirates were named the Best Local Collegiate Team by the voters of the magazine. This year, that honor goes to the Armstrong women's soccer team, who earned the program's first NCAA Southeast Region championship and NCAA Final Four appearance. Congratulations Pirates !

Welcome Back To Savannah !!

When we first started the blog in 2008 and Armstrong collected both National Championships in Houston, one of the biggest moments of that entire week was the reception that both teams got at the airport returning from the Festival.

This morning, history repeated itself for the Pirates as a very warm welcome at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport awaited the Armstrong men's and women's tennis teams. With two National Championship trophies in tow, the Pirates were the hit of not only the Atlanta airport (or at least Terminal B) but Savannah airport as well. As an announcement over the PA welcomed the national champion Pirates home, spontaneous applause broke out among the other travelers as the teams made their way down the terminal to the waiting area, where members of the Armstrong athletic department, faculty, staff and the Savannah community cheered their return.

All three of the Savannah-area television stations were on the scene, as was the Savannah Morning News. Many hugs were given, many pictures were taken and we will have some video highlights of the welcome home tomorrow.

But for now, read about the coverage of the Pirates' national championships from C. Ray Hall, writing for the Savannah Morning News here (men) and here (women), as well as a wonderful NCAA.com column by Scott Rabelais about Armstrong senior Kathleen Henry here. You can also view highlights of both of the Championship matches thanks to NCAA.com here (men) and here (women).

You can also enjoy below two more views of the Championship-clinching points from the Armstrong men and women ! Go Pirates !!

Armstrong sophomore Georgi Rumenov captures Championship point for the Pirates vs. West Florida

Armstrong senior Kathleen Henry captures Championship point for the Pirates vs. BYU-Hawaii

Closing Ceremonies To End A Successful Louisville Stay

The Closing Ceremonies took place at Bowman Field in Louisville with a nice video highlight package of the week's action here at the 2012 NCAA DII Spring Sports Festival, the presentation of the trophies to the six different National Champions (including another school that also had the pleasure of pulling off the double championship - Nova Southeastern, which won both the men's and women's golf titles this season!) as well as a laser light show that just didn't get off the ground.

Nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the Pirates, who are still riding sky high on pulling off both National Championships here in Louisville. Armstrong is now 2-for-2 in the last Spring Sports Festivals in the feat. What will 2016 bring? We shall see...

This also brings a close to the Armstrong Atlantic State University athletic season. Our fellow traveler to the festival, sophomore women's golfer Jenna Birch, fired a second consecutive 79 today to finish in 21st place at the NCAA Championships individually. Not bad for a player who had to chip-in on a playoff hole to get to Nationals! Birch will be back along with several of her teammates who won the 2012 Peach Belt Conference Championship, hungry to earn the program's first team NCAA berth in 2012-13 !
Baseball also fell today in the NCAA Southeast Regional to Catawba, 11-0.

But for now, it's time to celebrate, and you can do that as well by greeting the team coming back from Louisville on Sunday! The teams arrive back in Savannah on Delta Airlines (what else?) at 11:00 a.m. at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. This means a very early wake up time for us here in Louisville to catch that 7:15 a.m. flight, but it also means a day filled with celebration back home in Savannah tomorrow!

UNDEFEATED !!!!

You'll have to excuse the liberal use of exclamation points in the title there, but the rarity of having two tennis teams  - men's and women's - run through the season undefeated and pick up two NCAA DII Tennis Championships certainly begs for some excitement.

The Armstrong men's tennis team got out to a 3-0 lead after doubles on No. 2 West Florida, picking up  an 8-5 win at No. 1 doubles in a showdown of the top-ranked duo of Georgi Rumenov and Mikk Irdoja against the No. 2-ranked duo of Kevin Ducros and Bruno Savi. The Pirates won fairly easily at No. 2 doubles with No. 17-ranked Sven Lalic and Pedro Scocuglia defeating No. 18-ranked Leandro Ferreira and Andrey Pozhidaev and then collected an 8-6 win by Eudaldo Bonet and Matus Mydla at No. 3 doubles over Mike Lue and Domenico Sano.

In singles play, the Pirates won all six first sets, making it look like it would be an easy 5-0 win, but all credit to West Florida - they battled back in the second sets on all courts. No. 12-ranked Matus Mydla came up with the first point, getting a 6-2, 6-4 win over Leandro Ferreira at No. 4 singles. Top-ranked Georgi Rumenov then finished off the win, downing No. 7 Kevin Ducros, 6-4, 6-4, at No. 1 singles.

This is the third time that the Pirates have won both the men's and women's titles in the same season and tonight's Closing Ceremonies, where Armstrong will get on stage to collect both trophies, will be just as memorable and special as it was in 2008 in Houston for the last NCAA DII Spring Sports Festival.

And now for a little action photography skills to leave you with... we'll be back tonight for the Closing Ceremony wrapup !

gotcha Simon !

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS ! Pirates finish off Seasiders for 7th title

THE PIRATES ARE CHAMPIONS AGAIN! Armstrong women's tennis finished off No. 1 BYU-Hawaii for the seventh NCAA DII title in program history with a 5-2 victory on Saturday at the Top Gun Tennis Center.

After getting a 2-1 lead in doubles, the Pirates started out incredibly quick with five first sets in singles. A quick 6-2, 6-4 win by Clara Perez at No. 6 singles gave Armstrong a 3-1 lead, then Marlen Hacke came up with a big second-set tiebreak win to claim the fourth point, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).

It all came down to the lone senior on the team, Kathleen Henry, who earned a 6-4 first set win but trailed late in the second set. Down 5-3, Henry came up with a big hold and then a break to tie the game up at 5-5. Eventually the set would go to a tiebreak, where Henry built a 4-0 lead and closed out a 7-2 tiebreak to give Armstrong the title.

Armstrong has now tied BYU-Hawaii for the most DII women's tennis titles in NCAA history with seven and also have won four of the last five titles.

The men's team is just about to take the court, trying to give Armstrong the double championship for the third time in the last five seasons, as well as a second straight sweep at the DII Spring Sports Festival!

Armstrong leads 2-1 after doubles over BYU Hawaii

It didn't start off pretty, but it ended well for the Pirates in doubles. After a tough 8-1 loss at No. 1 doubles to the top-ranked doubles team in the nation, the Pirates were behind a break at No. 2 doubles and on serve at No. 3 doubles.

Five consecutive break points at No. 3 doubles went awry for Clara Perez and Kathleen Henry, but on the sixth, Perez hammered a return, resulting in a long volley and a key break point to put the Pirates up, 7-5. A held serve and Armstrong had its first point in the books, 8-5.

At No. 2 doubles, Olga Kalodzitsa and Marlen Hacke got a key break of their own late in their match, turning a 5-4 down score to a 6-5 lead and eventually an 8-5 win over the No. 4-ranked Jia and Tuionetoa  of the Seasiders, putting Armstrong up, 2-1.

We now head into singles play with the Pirates needing just three points to capture their seventh NCAA DII National Championship !

Championship Saturday

Welcome to Championship Saturday in Louisville. The Armstrong women's tennis team is on the court getting set to take on BYU-Hawaii in a matchup of two undefeated teams and the two teams that have won the most DII women's tennis titles in NCAA history. Put simply, it's the matchup most wanted to see and it should be the toughest match of the year for these two storied programs.

Follow along with live stats and watch along with live video of our match and we'll be back with updates as the match goes along.

Birch, Hall and Baseball

As we look forward to what should be a very eventful Saturday here in Louisville, we wanted to take care of a few housekeeping items to wrap up Friday's outstanding day.

First of all, Jenna Birch continues to impress in her NCAA Championships debut, shaving another stroke off of her score and carding a 79 on Friday. She avoided the dreaded doubles in this round and heads into Saturday's final round tied for 20th individually in the 90-golfer field. Birch is setting the tone for what should be an outstanding Armstrong women's golf team in 2012-13 and, as a sophomore, should have many more NCAA Championship rounds in her future.

One great aspect of this week in Louisville has been the outstanding coverage of the Pirate tennis teams by local writer C. Ray Hall, who is writing stories of the teams each day and sending them back to the Savannah Morning News for publication. Hall was a 29-year veteran of the Louisville Index-Journal who recently retired and is considered the pre-eminent expert on the University of Louisville/University of Kentucky rivalry, whether it be basketball, football or tiddly winks. The UL/UK rivalry is as fierce as any other in college sports but probably doesn't get the nationwide recognition others do because it is basketball-first. Read here his recount of the last game in Freedom Hall, the 50+ year home of Louisville Basketball, where Savannah native Pervis Ellison led the Cardinals to an NCAA National Championship. You can also read his stories of the Armstrong tennis teams' last three days at these links: Wednesday  Thursday  Friday

Finally, Saturday may not be the last Armstrong athletic event thanks to Ethan Bader hurling an Advil-popping 150-pitch five-hit complete game in the NCAA Southeast Regional as the Pirates staved off elimination with a 3-2 win over Lander. The Pirates get Catawba tomorrow and if they beat the Indians, they will make it to Sunday with a chance to advance to the NCAA DII College World Series, a place that Armstrong has not been since 1994.

So get some rest, get recharged and join us tomorrow for Championship Saturday from Louisville !

Two For The Road: No. 1 Pirate men join women for Championship Saturday

The top-ranked Pirate men came out on fire in doubles against No. 3 Lynn, carving out three quick victories - including Sven Lalic and Pedro Scocuglia's 8-4 win at No. 2 doubles - then winning the first set in all six singles matches against the Knights.

The Knights battled hard, but Armstrong prevailed with two straight-set singles wins from Dan Regan and Mikk Irdoja, to send Armstrong into the NCAA Division II National Championship match for the third time in the last five seasons. It's also the third time in the last five seasons that both the men and women will play for the title on the same day.

The Pirates will take on West Florida at 1 p.m. tomorrow for the title. The No. 2-ranked Argonauts blew through a game Augusta State squad, 5-0, after the Jaguars had to come back this morning and work hard to advance past Grand Canyon, 5-4. Big kudos to our Peach Belt brethren for an outstanding season - unofficially it has to be the first time that a 6 seed in a regional advanced all the way to the NCAA Semifinals, especially in DII men's tennis.

The Pirates downed the Argonauts, 9-0, back in February in a neutral-site match in Columbus. That match was more than two and a half months ago, however, and West Florida has had it rolling heading into the title match. Anyone expecting a similar blowout will be sorely disappointed and Armstrong will have to bring it's "A" game on Saturday to come away with the victory.

Below you can watch the clinching points from today's semifinal matches - first Mikk Irdoja's 6-4, 6-2 win over Luca Pavanelli at No. 3 singles in the men's match, then Clara Perez' 7-5, 6-3 win over Caroline Wendling at No. 6 singles in the women's match.

Mikk Irdoja final point in 5-0 semifinal win over Lynn

Clara Perez final point in 5-2 semifinal win over Barry

Women Knock Off Barry, Head To Finals

After a one-year absence, the Armstrong Atlantic State University women's tennis team is headed back to the NCAA DII Women's Tennis Championship match after closing out No. 2 Barry, 5-2, in the semifinals on Friday.

The Pirates needed just two singles wins after a 3-0 lead in doubles, and as fate would have it, Armstrong picked up exactly two first sets in singles. Barbora Krtickova picked up a 6-2, 6-0 win over Cristina Valladares at No. 1 singles, but all of the other matches were going Barry's way until Clara Perez won six straight games from 5-4 down in the first set to take a 7-5, 3-0 lead and eventually close out a 6-3 win in the second set to clinch the match.

Armstrong will now take on No. 1 and undefeated BYU-Hawaii in the national championship match in a matchup of the two women's tennis programs that have the most DII national championships in NCAA history. BYU-Hawaii has seven and Armstrong has six. The two teams met last in the 2010 title match with Armstrong winning, 5-1. Armstrong also faced the Seasiders in the last Spring Sports Festival, in Houston in 2008 as the Pirates won a semifinal matchup, 5-1.

Armstrong and BYU-Hawaii met in the postseason in eight straight seasons, from 2001-08, with the Pirates winning twice - in the 2005 National Championship match and the 2008 semifinals. The 2005 win ended a streak of 130 consecutive wins by BYU-Hawaii and the 2008 win ended a streak of 88 straight.

Next up is the men - Armstrong faces Lynn at 2:00 p.m. to join the women in the National Championship !

Oh! Deer

We finally got our chance to head over to Persimmon Ridge Golf Club and check out Jenna Birch in action on the third day of the 2012 NCAA DII Women's Golf Championships. While heading back from the front nine, we ran into a little bit of local fauna on a service road going back to the clubhouse.

Birch hit it pretty well on the front nine this morning, again amidst tough course conditions - she lipped out a birdie put on the par-5 hole 3 which features a split fairway. At four over par, she is on pace stay within grasp of a Top 20 finish in her first NCAA Championship finals.

Over at Top Gun Tennis Academy, we returned to see the Pirates get off to an outstanding start in doubles, leading No. 2 Barry 3-0. Aleksandra Filipovski and Barbora Krtickova collected an 8-4 win over Mona Mansour and Cristina Valladares, while Marlen Hacke and Olga Kalodzitsa also came up with an 8-4 win over Olivia Matusak and Julie Stas. Kathleen Henry and Clara Perez finished things off with an 8-6 win over Linda Fritschken and Caroline Wendling. Just two more points to go for another berth in the NCAA Championship match !

Into the semis ... and beyond

Armstrong finished off No. 6 Hawaii Pacific in the quarterfinal "dual match," picking up singles wins from Eudaldo Bonet, Matus Mydla and Sven Lalic to notch the 5-1 win and join the women in the semifinals.

It's the third time in the last five years that Armstrong has had both the men's and women's tennis teams have made the semifinals and the Pirates will be the only tennis program to have both genders in the DII semifinals in 2012.

Both teams will face very familiar foes in the semifinals. Armstrong's men take on Lynn, who beat Abilene Christian in a tough 5-3 match earlier today. The Pirates blanked Lynn, 9-0, back on March 2nd in Savannah.

The Armstrong women take on Barry in a rematch of last year's semifinal match in which the Bucs won, 5-3, en route to the national title, ending the Pirates' three straight national titles.

Updating our other NCAA action - Jenna Birch carded an 80 on Thursday and actually moved up six spots in the second round of the NCAA DII Women's Golf Championships. She is now tied for 18th in the 90-team field with two rounds to play. To say that course conditions are rough is an understatement - no golfer has broken par so far and scores in the back half of the standings are routinely 90+ scoring rounds.

Armstrong baseball took a tough 11-2 loss to Francis Marion in the opening round of the NCAA Southeast Regional and will face the winner of Mount Olive and Lander on Friday. That game, however, will be later in the day as rain washed out the rest of Thursday's action - Mount Olive and Lander will play Friday morning before that winner faces the Pirates.

Friday is shaping up to be a big day for the Pirates. Follow along our Louisville action here or on armstrongpirates.com for links to the baseball action. Go Pirates !

Almost like a dual match

The No. 3-ranked Pirates had to wait.. and wait.. and wait at the EP Tom Sawyer State Park as Grand Canyon and Concordia (NY) played five-plus hours in a titanic 5-4 match that went to a third-set tiebreaker to determine who advanced.

So getting on the court at 1:30, nearly two hours after the pushed-back scheduled time from yesterday's rain, Armstrong didn't hesitate in getting out to a quick start, sweeping all three doubles matches from No. 5 Hawaii Pacific.

In singles play, however, the Pirates got pushed by the Seasiders. Only one match came up in straight sets for Armstrong - a 6-4, 6-2 win by Aleksandra Filipovski - but Hawaii Pacific got one back at five singles to make the score 4-1. With two more matches in third sets, Olga in a long second set after a first-set tiebreaker and Barbora in the middle of a second-set tiebreaker, Clara Perez came up with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Carrie Shuler to clinch the match and send the Pirates into the NCAA Semifinals for the 15th time in program history.

Next up awaits No. 2 Barry. There are four teams left in the semifinals and three of them - No. 1 BYU-Hawaii, Barry and Armstrong - are ranked 1-2-3 and are all undefeated this season. The party crasher is No. 6 Abilene Christian, who beat No. 4 Lynn today, 5-1.

The interesting part, though, is that while the women were finishing off singles, Armstrong took a 2-1 lead in doubles over Hawaii Pacific, giving the match a very dual-match feel here in the NCAA Quarterfinals.

Armstrong will face Barry in the semifinals on Friday at 9 a.m. back at the Top Gun Tennis Center.

Rain, Rough and Ready

So the first day of competition for the Pirates in the 2012 NCAA DII Spring Sports Festival is in the books, and both tennis teams came away with wins. However, not all the teams competing got through their first day - five men's matches were either halted in progress or never got on the courts when rains and lightning came through Louisville.

What does this mean for the Pirates? For one, those men's matches will have to be completed before Armstrong takes the courts tomorrow, meaning tomorrow's 9 am and 1 pm scheduled start times will be more like 11:30 and 3 p.m. It also means that some teams - not Armstrong - might have to play two matches tomorrow, which you would think might benefit the Pirates as the tournament goes along. Remember 2007, when Armstrong women had to play twice in one day and beat Valdosta, but lost to BYU-Hawaii? It makes a difference. It really does.

Finally, a special "chin up" to Jenna Birch, who carded an 81 today to sit tied for 24th after the first round of the 2012 NCAA DII Women's Golf Championships. Jenna got off to a rough start, going +5 over the first five holes, but the great thing about a four-round tournament is that there is plenty of opportunity to make up ground. Nobody broke par in the first round of the tournament, so the window is there to chip away at the lead tomorrow and get into contention over the last two days.

Finally finally - let's hear from Armstrong senior Mikk Irdoja on today's match against Queens (NY) and his thoughts on tomorrow's match against Hawaii Pacific:

Survivor

It wasn't particularly pretty, but the top-ranked Armstrong men's tennis team survived a game effort from No. 25 Queens (NY) in doubles play, pushing the Pirates to the brink before succumbing, 5-0, in the Round of 16.

No. 3 doubles found themselves in a huge 5-2 hole, but Eudaldo Bonet and Matus Mydla came up with a big comeback to win, 8-6, for the first doubles point.

At No. 1 doubles, Georgi Rumenov and Mikk Irdoja dropped a key break midway through the match, but rallied to force a tiebreak and each player came up with huge shots in the tiebreak for the 9-8 (7-4) win. Particularly huge was a passing backhand shot by Mikk at 4-3 that gave the Pirates the cushion to then come away with the victory.

No. 2 doubles saw a huge service game by Pedro Scocuglia at 8-7 up to put away a 9-7 win with Sven Lalic.

Daniel Regan, coming into the lineup so that Irdoja could rest, picking up a 6-1, 6-1 win at No. 6 singles. Matus then finished things off with a 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 3 singles.

Next up for the Pirates is No. 6 Hawaii Pacific, who beat Shaw, 5-0, on Wednedsay. That will be at 1 p.m. on Thursday at the EP Tom Sawyer State Park.

This one's for you, Dan!

No. 3 Pirates Blank Drury In Round Of 16, 5-0

After a very slow start - the Pirates were only allowed 15 minutes of warmup time after a quick win by Lynn preceding Armstrong's match - a 5-0 win by Armstrong puts the Pirates into the quarterfinals.

The Pirates won all three doubles matches as the second-ranked doubles team of Aleksandra Filipovski and Barbora Krtickova downed Beatriz Juan and Stefanie Monsch, 8-5, at No. 1 doubles, while No. 11-ranked Marlen Hacke and Olga Kalodzitsa beat Pelagie Gamo and Jelena Schaeftlmeier, 8-4, at No. 2 doubles. No. 17-ranked Kathleen Henry and Clara Perez finished off the doubles sweep with an 8-2 win over Ellen Bennett and Abbey Sharpe at No. 3 doubles.

Armstrong picked up all six first sets in singles play, then No. 7-ranked Filipovski picked up the first singles win with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Gamo at No. 2 singles, then No. 30-ranked Clara Perez finished off the match with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Bennett at No. 6 singles.

Next up for the Pirates is No. 5-ranked Hawaii Pacific - a 5-0 win over Colorado Mesa - at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow at EP Tom Sawyer State Park.

Pirates Earn ITA National Honors

Congratulations to Armstrong's ITA National Award winners! Freshman Sven Lalic (left) was named the 2012 ITA DII Men's Tennis National Rookie of the Year, while sophomore Georgi Rumenov (right) was named the 2012 ITA DII Men's Tennis National Player to Watch.

Lalic is the third Pirate to earn National Rookie of the Year honors, joining Phillip Schertel (1992) and Daldo Bonet (2009), while Rumenov is the second Armstrong player to earn National Player to Watch honors, joining Davor Zink (2006).

Meanwhile, Armstrong head coach Simon Earnshaw was named the 2012 ITA DII Women's Tennis National Coach of the Year for the fourth time in his career. Earnshaw was also the women's national winner in 2004, 2006 and 2009.

Tomorrow it all starts as both the men's and women's teams take the court and Jenna Birch tees it up. 8:40 a.m. tee time for Jenna (follow live scoring here), 11 a.m. match time for the Armstrong women vs. Drury (live stats here) and 2 p.m. match time for the Armstrong men vs. Queens (NY) (live stats here).

Practice Makes Perfect !

It's Tuesday at the DII Spring Sports Festival and the Armstrong men's and women's tennis teams headed to the Top Gun Tennis Academy for a one-hour workout on the courts. This is the facility that the Pirates will play at on Wednesday, as well as Friday and Saturday should Armstrong advance that far.

Meanwhile, Jenna Birch and head golf coach Michael Butler headed to Persimmon Ridge Golf Club for a practice round today. Reports are that the rough at Persimmon Ridge is Open-heighth (4 in. deep cut) so obviously the goal is to keep it in the fairway.

Tonight at the tennis coaches' meeting, the ITA will announce the national award winners for 2012 DII tennis. Several Pirates are up for national awards so we will be back with you tonight to let you know how Armstrong fares !

Opening Ceremonies at Churchhill Downs

And we're off! Well.. kinda. But the 2012 NCAA DII Spring Sports Festival opening ceremonies were held tonight at Churchill Downs, which had a mildly successful horse race just the other week. However I have it on very good authority that Jenna Birch is ready for the big time after defeating two other horses on this computer simulation at the Kentucky Derby Museum.

After an outstanding meal and a tour of the extensive Churchill Downs festivities, the tennis teams and Jenna heard from the Mayor of Louisville, two former DII student-athletes, the Benedictine University AD and NCAA President Dr. Mark Emmert.

The evening concluded with some outstanding fireworks over the race track at Churchill Downs.

Tomorrow, it's practice.. practice.. practice. And then the games begin on Wednesday !

Fireworks over Churchill Downs on Monday evening at the Opening Ceremonies

The Armstrong men's tennis team at the Opening Ceremonies

The Armstrong women's tennis team + women's golfer Jenna Birch at the Opening Ceremonies

Pirates Arrive In Louisville

The Pirates have arrived in Louisville! Both the Armstrong men's and women's tennis teams, head coach Simon Earnshaw as well as head golf coach Michael Butler and Jenna Birch all connected in Atlanta and hit the Louisville Airport at approximately 1 p.m. Coach Butler and Jenna are off to hit some balls on the range while the men's and women's tennis team will get a light practice in today at the University of Louisville. Then, tonight, the DII Spring Sports Festival Opening Ceremonies at Churchill Downs . We hope to be back later tonight with some pictures from all the festivities!

Also, the Blog would like to give a shoutout to the Armstrong baseball team for winning the Peach Belt Conference baseball tournament yesterday with a 3-1 victory over Lander. The Pirates advanced to their 13th NCAA Regional in the last 23 seasons and will head to Mount Olive, N.C., on Thursday for first-round action against PBC rival Francis Marion. If you can't make it to Louisville this week, then consider heading up to North Carolina to watch the Pirates in the Southeast Regional.

The PBC Tournament trophy for baseball brings the Armstrong athletic department's total amount of PBC Championships this season to a staggering 11 - seven regular season titles and four tournament titles. It is truly a great year to be a Pirate !

Pirates Earn ITA Southeast Region Honors on Friday

Congratulations to Armstrong head men's and women's tennis coach Simon Earnshaw on his ITA Southeast Region Coach of the Year honors for both the men and women teams, released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association on Friday.

The Pirate players also had several honorees on the men's and women's team. Armstrong senior Kathleen Henry is the Southeast's Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship/Leadership award while Clara Perez was the region's Rookie of the Year. On the men's side, Mikk Irdoja was the region's Senior Player of the Year, while Georgi Rumenov was the Player to Watch and Sven Lalic was the Rookie of the Year.

In Louisville, the ITA will host its annual awards banquet on Tuesday, May 15th, where the national winners will be announced. All of the Pirates' region award winners will be under consideration for the national awards.

Click here to view the complete list of regional awards from 2012 for the men and women. All but one of the Southeast Region awards this season came from the Peach Belt Conference.

Welcome to the 2012 Armstrong Tennis (and Golf!) Blog

Welcome to the 2012 Armstrong Tennis (and Golf!) Blog, chronicling the Pirates' journey to the 2012 NCAA Division II Spring Sports Festival in Louisville, Ky.

The first Armstrong Tennis blog began in 2008 as the men's and women's tennis teams journeyed to Houston for the Spring Sports Festival and brought home two NCAA Division II National Championships. Four blogs and three more trophies later, the blog is happy to follow Armstrong tennis back to the Festival and also chronicle the journey of Armstrong sophomore women's golfer Jenna Birch, who became the first Pirate to qualify individually for the NCAA DII Women's Golf Championships, which will also be played at the Festival.

So sit back, bookmark the page and enjoy our coverage as the teams head north to Louisville on Monday, May 14, for the Festival !