KUTZTOWN, PA (April 15, 2010) – The Kutztown University women's tennis team has earned a trip to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) playoffs and will host West Chester University on Tuesday, April 20 at 3:30 p.m. at Keystone Tennis Courts.
Making its sixth consecutive PSAC playoff appearance, Kutztown (9-7 overall) is seeded second. West Chester is seeded third. The Golden Rams defeated Kutztown, 5-4, in a match played on March 30.
The winner of the match advances to Bloomsburg for the PSAC Championships to meet West top seed and reigning PSAC champion California, Pa. on Friday. The other first-round match has Mercyhurst visiting Slippery Rock. The winner of that match will play East top seed Bloomsburg.
Senior Rohini Das is concluding a spectacular career. She will play for the final time on the Keystone courts. Das has enjoyed another strong season, compiling a 13-2 overall record at No. 1 singles. She has won six consecutive singles matches. Sabrina Arnaud has also won 10 individual matches this season, winning six times at No. 2 singles and four times at No. 3 singles.
Also having key moments this season for Kutztown have been Nicole Devine and Megan Groh, both of whom have won nine singles' matches each this season. Ridhima Borooah has teamed with Das to combine for one of the most formidable tennis duos in the conference. They have won seven of their last 10 outings together.
Meanwhile, West Chester has reached the conference's postseason tournament for the first time since the PSAC went to a dual-match tournament format in 2004. West Chester's top performers have been Claire Afrassiabian and Luisiana Souto. Both players have won 14 matches. Afrassiabian has posted a perfect 14-0 mark at No. 4 singles.
Kutztown, West Chester and East Stroudsburg all finished the regular season tied for second place with identical 3-2 records. Bloomsburg won the regular-season title with a 5-0 league mark. After the tie-breaking criteria established by the coaches in the offseason could not break the tie, a committee was formed to discuss how the league would determine the second and third seeds in the postseason.
It was determined that the best method to break the three-way tie, without creating subjective criteria, was to move to courts won among the three tied teams during head-to-head competition. Using the match results, West Chester defeated Kutztown, 5-4. Kutztown defeated East Stroudsburg, 9-0. East Stroudsburg defeated West Chester, 5-4.
The total courts won per team turned out the following: Kutztown-13, West Chester-9 and East Stroudsburg-5.
The Golden Bears will battle West Virginia Wesleyan and Charleston in this weekend's regional duals at Bloomsburg University.
