LAIE, Hawaii ? The No. 23 UC San Diego women's tennis team played its second round NCAA Division II Championship match Wednesday afternoon against the No. 1 BYU-Hawaii Seasiders.  The Tritons competed well with the undefeated Seasiders but could not pull out the victory, losing 5-0.  UCSD's season concludes with a 14-11 record.  BYU-Hawaii improved to 26-0.

The Tritons played the Seasiders evenly to start doubles play.  After a short rain delay, BYU-Hawaii took over and ended up winning all three doubles matches.  For UCSD, Natalie Varnay and Taskeen Bains fell to Elwen Li and Maggie Deng 8-3 at No. 1.  Kimmi Dao and Valerie Tang battled Seasiders Ramona Husaru and Becky Lu in the No. 2 match but came up short 8-4.  In the No. 3 match, Ina Dan and Justine Ang Fonte lost 8-4 as well to Jenny Chin and Ayako Ikeda.

In singles, BYU-Hawaii finished the match with wins at No. 2 and No. 5 singles.  Triton Dalya Perelman could not hang with Maggie Deng, falling 6-1, 6-0.  Meanwhile, Molly Sullens also faced some tough competition falling to Jenny Chin 6-1, 6-2.

UCSD Head Coach Liz LaPlante commented, “It was a great season.  We realized we are not that far away from the No. 1 team in the country.  With so many freshmen contributing and the team coming together so well, we can use this experience next season.”

BYU-Hawaii will continue play in the third round and look to win their third straight D-II National Championship and their eighth title since 1999.

UCSD has now lost in the second round of the tournament the past three seasons, with all three losses coming from teams in Hawaii.  In the 2007 tournament, the Tritons defeated Sonoma State in round one but fell to Hawaii Pacific in round 2.  In 2006, UCSD also defeated Sonoma State in the first round but this time could not overcome the Vulcans of Hawaii Hilo.

This was the last match for Tritons Molly Sullens and Captain Justine Ang Fonte.  Sullens finished her career with a singles record of 27-14 and a doubles record of 10-6 over her four seasons at UCSD.  Fonte compiled a record of 40-17 in singles and 33-29 in doubles while at UC San Diego.