Lady Jags win first championship in a decade

April 20, 2013

Lady Jaguars are back as region champions

After losing an agonizingly close championship match in 2012, the Georgia Perimeter College Lady Jaguars came back with a vengeance to seize the 2013 Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association women’s tennis crown.

Georgia Perimeter won the championship Saturday at Oxford College of Emory in Oxford, Ga., with a 7-2 victory over Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, longtime tennis power of the conference.

The win gives the Jaguars a ticket to Tuscon, Ariz., for the national tournament May 4-10. GPC hasn’t won a women’s tennis Region 17 championship in a decade, but last year the Jaguars received an at-large bid to nationals and placed 12th in the tournament.

Freshman ace Niriantsa Rosolomalala, ranked third in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, was named the GCAA Most Valuable Player for 2013.

Head coach Mohamed “Reda” Nait Omar, who took over the women’s tennis program at GPC in 2007-08, earned the Coach of the Year award.

The Jaguars sprinted ahead from the opening serve and never looked back. Fatyha Berjane (No. 2), Idia Amen (No. 3) and Larissa Nelson (No. 4) all won by 6-0 or 6-1 sets, while Rosolomalala defeated a tough No. 1 singles opponent, Camelia Abdalah, 6-3, 6-1.

In the No. 5 flight, ABAC’s Nikki Hall had to work three sets to down Alexia Alleyne 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. Meanwhile, GPC’s Nea Krpo outlasted Olivia Robbins 6-4, 7-6 (7-2).

The Jaguars captured two of three doubles matches. Rosolomalala and Amen rolled to a 6-1, 6-0 win and Berjane and Krpo triumphed 6-1, 6-3. Alleyne and Nelson fell 6-4, 6-3 to Hall and Olivia Robbins.

GPC, ranked No. 13 in the nation by ITA, edged ABAC in February by a slim 5-4 score and finished the regular season with a 5-2-1 record. The Jaguars are undefeated against two-year schools—the losses and tie came at the hands of four-year institutions.