ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. – After starting the season with no Cougar singles player reaching the quarterfinals of the Fall ITA West Regional, Azusa Pacific women's tennis finished the season making it to the national quarterfinals as a team before being stopped by No. 2 Nova Southeastern 4-2 in the NCAA Division II Women's Tennis National Championships on Thursday morning at Sanlando Park, concluding a season in which the Cougars exceeded expectations.
 
Azusa Pacific went undefeated in the regular season against PacWest teams and earned the No. 1 seed at the PacWest Championships and then tied the best NCAA postseason result in program history by reaching the quarterfinals at nationals. They finish the season with a 21-5 record, which was just one win away from the program record for wins in a single season.
 
Nova Southeastern will advance to the semifinals with a 24-3 record to face No. 3 seed Midwestern State. The other semifinal will feature No. 1 Barry, which defeated PacWest rival Point Loma, 4-0, and No. 5 seed Flagler.
 
Julia Jordan and Karola Suviste earned the Cougars' two points with Jordan winning by retirement at No. 2 singles, while Suviste won her match 7-5, 6-3. Suviste came back from down a break in the second set and won six games in a row to conclude her freshman season with a win.
 
Suviste finishes the season with a 22-2 record, winning her last 14 matches in a row. Her 22 singles victories are tied for the third-most in a single season by a Cougar and just two shy of the record, and her 91.7 winning percentage also ranks third-best in Cougar history.
 
The Cougars started in a hole with the Sharks winning the doubles point and the first set in five of the singles matches. The Sharks advanced through their round of 16 match much more quickly than the Cougars yesterday and were the fresher team in the first two hours of competition.
 
Azusa Pacific slowly dug out of that early hole to get a shot at an improbable upset. Jordan won her match by retirement for her 15^th win in her senior season. Then Stina Larsson and Katherine Nguyen both began to come back in their second sets.
 
After Suviste gave the Cougars their second point of the day, Nguyen and Larsson both fought their way into second-set tiebreakers, needing to win both to force third sets and stay alive in the match. Sofia Shing was the one who eventually pushed Nova Southeastern over the finish line, winning her second-set tiebreak at No. 3 singles for a 6-3, 7-6(3) win over Larsson.
 
The Cougars were the last PacWest team left standing and now have a 9-7 all-time record in NCAA postseason matches. Head Coach Mark Bohren has now won 20 NCAA postseason matches in his coaching career between men's and women's singles.
 
Azusa Pacific and Barry are the only two schools in the country to reach the NCAA Division II National Championships quarterfinals in both men's and women's tennis this season.