The Lions (10-14), ranked 15th in the coaches poll and seeded 16th in the tournament, will play defending champion and top-seeded Auburn Montgomery (22-2) in the second round at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The Gold Nuggets, ranked 20th and seeded 17th, finished 7-22 after their sixth trip to nationals in eight seasons.
Gabriele Allford and Ashley Tebeau, both straight-sets singles losers in Vanguard's 5-4 home victory against Xavier on April 5, reversed those outcomes to help the Lions hand the Nuggets their first opening-round loss at nationals. Alford beat Nicole DeLoach 6-1, 6-3 at the No. 4 flight, and Tebeau defeated Ashley McGill 6-0, 6-0 at No. 6.
Xavier never led in the dual, and Vanguard took the lead for good at 2-1 when Allford and Tebeau defeated McGill and Jordyn Goody 8-2 at No. 3 doubles. The Lions clinched when Petronella Lindahl beat Goody 6-3, 6-3 at No. 5 singles.
The Nuggets got their points from DeLoach and Kourtney Howell, who beat Ekaterina Gabashvili and Petronella Lindahl 8-1 at No. 2 doubles; Amber Brown, who defeated Gabashvili 6-2, 6-4 at No. 3 singles; and Amanda Materre, who rallied past Nina Pudar 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 at No. 2.
DeLoach and Howell closed the season with seven consecutive doubles victories. Brown avenged a straight-sets loss to Gabashvili from April. Materre became the fourth Gold Nuggets freshman to win in singles at nationals — joining Dominique Bell (2004), Marian Lang (twice in 2009) and Carmen Nelson (2010) — and earned her sixth straight singles victory.
Howell lost 6-1, 4-6, 1-0 (10-6) to Gabriela Bergmanova, ranked second by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, at the top singles flight.
The Gold Nuggets entered the tournament 5-0 in first-round matches. It's the first time they failed to reach the second round.
It was the final collegiate competition for McGill, a fifth-year senior who graduated from Xavier on Saturday and competed at nationals in tennis and basketball. The other five Nuggets are scheduled to return next season.
Xavier's men (17-7), ranked seventh and seeded seventh, had a first-round bye and will play ninth-ranked and 10th-seeded Point Loma Nazarene (13-10) in the second round at 1 p.m. Wednesday. Point Loma defeated 23rd-seeded Mobile 8-1 Tuesday.
NOTES: There were no first-round women's or men's upsets. There were two 5-4 decisions — Indiana Wesleyan's women beat Robert Morris (Chicago), and Belhaven's men defeated Campbellsville. Both duals matched the 15th and 18th seeds . . . The NAIA announced a three-year contract extension with the Mobile Area Tennis Association to keep the women's and men's tournaments in Mobile through 2016. The date of next year's tourneys will be May 14-18.
Results
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By Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
VISIT: XULAATHLETICS
VISIT: XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
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