Generals in as a Team, SBC's Taylor Joins W&L Trio in Individual Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. --- Conference champion Washington and Lee University will be the lone team to represent the ODAC in the 2011 NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Team Tournament, as announced last week.  Joining the team tourney is the 2011 NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Individual Tournament, which announced its fields for singles and doubles play on Wednesday.

A trio of Generals and 2011 ODAC Player of the Year, Ariel Taylor of Sweet Briar College, will compete in the individual event.  Ellen Yeatman will join Taylor in the singles tournament, while the duo of Trelsie Sadler and Lauren Lukas will compete in the doubles bracket.

Washington and Lee (18-6) will join six other teams in Pittsburgh, Pa., for a maximum of three matches on May 12-14 in a pod hosted by Carnegie Mellon University.  The Generals, ranked eighth nationally and second in the Atlantic South Region by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), earned a bye into the second round and will square off with the winner of the Wilkes University (15-1) versus Ithaca College (10-9).

CMU (11-8) takes on Elizabethtown College (12-5) and Moravian College (10-6) meets the University of Mary Washington (16-8) in first round matchups.  A victory on the pod's final day (May 14) sends the winner to Claremont, Calif., for the team quarterfinals on May 24, followed by the semifinals and championship on May 25-26.

Click HERE for the full team tournament bracket!

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer Colleges will also be the host for the individual singles and doubles tournaments.  The individual championships consist of 32 singles players and 16 doubles teams.  The draw for both sides of the individual event will be announced on the day of the team championship (May 26).  The individual tournament begins on May 27 and continues through May 29.

Taylor, a freshman from Springfield, Va., won a pair of ODAC Player of the Week awards in her first season at SBC.  She went a perfect 16-0 at No. 1 singles during the spring season, posting a 9-0 mark in league play.  In the latest Atlantic South Region rankings by the ITA, Taylor is slotted eighth.

Ranked sixth in the region, Yeatman enters the national singles field for the second straight season.  She also played in the doubles bracket (with Lauren Caire) in 2010.  Yeatman, who was named an ITA National Player to Watch last May, went 5-9 at No. 1 singles, playing all but three of her finished matches against non-conference opponents.  Amongst her non-ODAC opponents were seven fellow national qualifiers, one alternate and one NCAA Division I player.

The team of Sadler and Lukas is currently ranked third in the Atlantic South Region by the ITA.  They went 9-7 in matches at No. 1 doubles, posting a 2-0 league mark.  They faced five national qualifying doubles teams during the fall and spring, as well as one member of two other NCAA tournament duos.

Click HERE for the full release of the singles and doubles tournament fields!

For more information on the NCAA women's tennis tournaments, visit the NCAA at www.ncaa.com.