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Campbell Women Seeded First in A-Sun Tennis Championship

BUIES CREEK, N.C. – In its search for a second Atlantic Sun title in the last three years, nationally-ranked Campbell University is the top-seeded school in the A-Sun Women's Tennis Championship that begins on Wednesday at DeLand, Fla.
The Lady Camels (11-4, 4-0 A-Sun) receive a first-round bye and will play on Thursday at 9:00 a.m. against the winner of Wednesday's Jacksonville State (#8) vs. Belmont (#9) match. Florida Atlantic is seeded second, while UCF is third and Troy State fourth. Friday's semifinal round and Saturday's championship are slated for 10:00 a.m. starts. The A-Sun tournament champion will earn the league's automatic berth in the NCAA Regional.
Campbell, rated number 63 in last week's Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings, is one of three A-Sun schools currently ranked. UCF is number 65, while Florida Atlantic stands at number 67.
The Atlantic Sun does not play a full round-robin regular season schedule, so the tennis brackets are seeded based on overall won-lost percentage, head-to-head competition, national ranking and strength of schedule.
Campbell went 4-0 against A-Sun schools with wins over UCF, Georgia State, Gardner-Webb and Belmont – all on the road or at neutral sites. Of Campbell's four losses, three were on the road against nationally-ranked opponents – Virginia Commonwealth, Winthrop and Old Dominion.
CU opened the year with six-straight wins, then closed the regular season with five victories in its last six matches, including a 5-2 triumph over Elon on Monday.
Seniors Kerstin Stockinger and Lindsey Hughes, plus juniors Carmen Linder and Isabel Declercq remain from Campbell's 2001 A-Sun Championship team that defeated FAU in the final to earn the program's first-ever berth in the NCAA Regional Championships.
Stockinger, a senior from Innsbruck, Austria, has posted a 10-5 record at number-one singles and enters the tournament with a career singles mark of 82-36 to rank sixth on CU's all-time victories list. She has also fashioned an 11-3 record at number-one doubles with Linder. Including a 56-21 record in three years with Teodora Doncheva, Stockinger owns a 67-24 all-time doubles mark for CU.
Hughes, a senior from Charlotte, N.C., owns a 3-7 singles mark this spring while dividing time between the fifth and sixth slot in the lineup. She has also compiled a 10-2 record at number-three doubles with Ingrid Stockinger, a freshman who is Kerstin's younger sister. Ingrid has fashioned a 12-8 singles record this year, including an 8-5 mark in dual action.
Declercq, who registered 32 wins during the 2001 season, leads this year's team with a 13-1 mark in dual matches, primarily at the number-four position. Despite having another year of athletics eligibility remaining, the Waregem, Belgium native plans on graduating in May after just three years. Her career singles record stands at 66-21.
Linder, ranked number-99 in the latest Omni Hotels singles list, has compiled a 9-5 mark in dual matches while seeing most of her action at the number-two slot in the lineup. The Beinheim, France resident was a first-team all-conference selection in 2001.
Junior Pascale Veraverbeke has posted a 10-5 record in dual match play this spring for CU after spending two years at the University of Iowa. In doubles play, the Waregem, Belgium native has teamed with Declercq to register a 12-2 record at the second position.
Campbell's women have now compiled winning records in seven-consecutive seasons, including each of the five that David Johnson has served as head coach. Under Johnson's guidance, the Lady Camels own a 78-26 (.750) record in dual matches and have reached at least the semifinal round of the A-Sun Championship tournament for three-straight years.