Women's Tennis making national racket

Oct. 21, 2004
By Dan Tomlin
Sports Editor

For the Queen Bees tennis program and coach Nada Diab their trip to the national tournament has been a long time coming.

The senior laden team compiled a 12-3 record, capped off by an NAIA Region VII Championship over St. Scholastica (Minn.).

The Queen Bees will travel to Mobile, Ala. during the week of May 16-20. There they will take on the best in the NAIA nation with hopes of bringing home a national championship.

For the seniors their final season was one they wanted to make memorable.

“You would not believe the emotions,” Diab said. “The seniors worked really hard so that they could say ‘we went to nationals our senior year."

For seniors Erin Hagge, Amber Wilson, and Noelle Stecher their senior campaign couldn’t have gone any better.

After starting the season perfect at 5-0 the Queen Bees would also notch two victories against region rival Olivet Nazarene.

Last season the Tigers beat the Queen Bees in the regional championship.
As in golf, the Queen Bees will now have to wait until May to compete in their national tournament. This is an extreme disadvantage for northern schools as the climate does not cooperate with outdoor tennis schedules.

“We are going to try and practice indoor during the winter months,” Diab said. “It’s a whole different game when you get to nationals.”

For the Queen Bees just making it to the national tournament was reason enough for celebration, and the success of the team was no surprise to Diab or any of the players on the team.

“I knew we were going to be good when I saw our doubles teams,” Diab said. “When we win our doubles matches we only need two more points in our singles matches.”

That winning combination has worked as planned for Diab who has been coaching at St. Ambrose since 1996.

With the emotions of the women so high and expectations of themselves on the same level all year long the accomplishment of advancing to play the best in the country is cause for excitement.

“Every year we’ve been saying this is our year this is our year,” Diab said. “We were just super excited to win the regional championship.”

The women’s tennis team was the first St. Ambrose athletic team to have a national champion, as Sarah Rafael and Jennifer Saberon captured a doubles national championship during the 1991 campaign.

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