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NEW ORLEANS – In a match that spanned two days due to weather, the University of South Alabama women's tennis team came back from two deficits in singles then easily took the doubles point to defeat Louisiana-Monroe 4-3 Sunday morning and reach the finals of the Sun Belt Conference Championships.

The top-seeded Jaguars move to 20-2 on the year—reaching 20 victories for the first time since 2003—and will play for the league title for the second straight season later today. The No. 4 seed Warhawks end the year at 15-7.

"This is huge," said USA head coach Jaco Keyser. "I don't feel like we played our best tennis yesterday, but we showed some grit and hung in there. We got a little bit lucky, but I'm a firm believer in the harder your work the luckier you get; the results validated that belief system."

Play resumed at 9 a.m. this morning after being suspended Saturday as a result of rain, and the Jags wasted little time in claiming the winning point. Senior Mary Angela Martin (Mobile, Ala.) and junior Michaela Meszarosova (Bratislava, Slovakia) put South Alabama on the board on the No. 2 court with a 6-1 win, and junior Paula Sanchez (Bogota, Colombia) and sophomore Monica Mitta (Fairhope, Ala.) followed shortly thereafter with a 6-2 win at No. 3 to clinch the win.

"We played great doubles, but the key there is that we executed what we do on a day-to-day basis," Keyser said. "It's the same thing with the final coming up, if we just trust our practices and keep staying stubborn in regard to what we want to do things should fall in place."

Louisiana-Monroe jumped out to a 2-0 lead in singles behind two straight-sets wins. Petra Horakova downed Mitta 6-3, 6-0 at No. 2, and Sophie Rufyikiri defeated junior Cinta Maria Papke (Flein, Germany) 6-3, 6-2 at No. 4.

The Jaguars answered right back to tie the match as sophomore Laura Valkova (Piestany, Slovakia) rallied from a first-set loss to defeat Amy Olivier 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 on the No. 1 court and, sophomore Laura Matuskova (Bratislava, Slovakia) lost just one game in dropping Letha Gaigher 6-1, 6-0 at No. 6.

ULM's Jana Duhanova put the Warhawks back on top at No. 5 with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Martin, but senior Emily Newton (Dothan, Ala.) bounced back after losing the first set in a tiebreaker to win 6-7 (6-8), 7-5, 6-4 against Caitlin Herb to send the match to doubles.

"That was impressive," Keyser said of Newton's performance. "Any time you can bounce back from a first set like that and, under crisis, trust and keep trying to execute your game plan takes a lot of mental toughness. That's something she's grown with in the last year or two."

"It was a good first set, it was really tight, so I knew the second set was going to be tight too if I was going to win it," Newton said. "I just tried to stay the course and play my game. I knew she had some gaps in her backhand that would eventually break down, I tried to attack that. And when Laura Matuskova came out and won her second set, it was huge that she got on and off the court; it gave me some momentum."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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