The ASU tennis team's season has been good, but there’s a chance they could make it historic.
The team (15-1, 5-0 Pac-12) has not lost a match in more than two months. Title talk is starting to whirl around Whiteman Tennis Center.
Senior Hannah James is confident this could be the team to bring home No. 22 ASU's first-ever Pac-12 title.
“I feel like 100 percent we can take a team title this year,” said James. “I have no doubts in our team. I feel everyone is playing at their best. … I feel like this is where we could make our breakthrough, and we could do it this year.”
Fellow senior Jacqueline Cako shares her teammate's optimism.
“It could definitely happen,” Cako said. “It's basically kind of up to how everyone plays.”
James said she felt as though the team was playing its best tennis in the past two weeks.
It was particularly evident in the road trip against Washington and Washington State last weekend.
There couldn’t be a better time for the Sun Devils to be playing their best, because they’re going to need to be to have any hope of winning the Pac-12.
Over the next two weeks, ASU hosts No. 5 USC, No. 9 UCLA, No. 11 Cal and No. 12 Stanford. The four California powerhouses hold five of the top-10 singles players in the country.
Success for the Sun Devils could hinge on not being overwhelmed by the situation or the names on the other teams’ roster. Cako said they need to go right after the California schools.
“You just have to stay in the moment and compete really hard and not give them any sense of hope of winning basically,” Cako said. “Just come out there and be ready to go and take it to them right from the first ball.”
Winning the Pac-12 would likely cement the Sun Devils as one of the top five teams in the country.
Although a Pac-12 championship would be the reward, coach Sheila McInerney insists that isn’t their focus. ASU can’t let the glare of a possible Pac-12 trophy blind them to what it still has left to do.
“That’s the last thing on our minds right now,” McInerney said. “We’ve got four teams coming up in the next two weeks that are top 12 in the country so you take them one at a time.
Needless to say, winning the first Pac-12 title in ASU’s history would be a feat. A school not named Stanford, UCLA or USC hasn’t won the conference for the better part of two decades.
Stanford has won at least a piece of the title every year, save one, since 1998. USC won the Pac-12 outright in 2009.
For James, beating the California schools and taking home that long elusive title would be the culmination of both her career and everything the Sun Devils have done this year.
“I think we’ve all busted our guts the past, how many weeks? 12 weeks or so?” James said quietly, as if speaking too loudly might jinx her. “We’ve played 16 matches, and I think we’ve earned our spot.”
Reach the reporter at ejsmith7@asu.edu
