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: