G-MAC Women's Championship Page
Almost two years to the day after the last G-MAC men's and women's tennis tournaments were held, Hlllsdale College's tennis teams return to the courts to try and add to their trophy cases.
For the third straight tournament, Kentucky Wesleyan is the host institution for the G-MAC tennis championships, slated to begin on Friday in Owensboro.
In the women's bracket, the fourth-seeded Chargers open play on Friday at 9:30 a.m. CT against top-seeded Tiffin. The winner of the match will face the victor between second-seeded Walsh and third-seeded Findlay in the other semifinal match. That final showdown will occur at 10 a.m. CT on Saturday with the title on the line.
The Hillsdale women are the two-time defending G-MAC champions but have battled injuries all season, finishing 5-6 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
While the Chargers have lost to all three teams (Findlay, Tiffin and Walsh) in the tournament bracket this season, however, all three matches were close – including the regular season match against the top-seeded Dragons, which included five tiebreaks and several close matches that could have flipped the result to a Hillsdale victory.
The Charger women are led by two players who return from the squad that won the 2019 championship, senior and No. 1 singles player Hannah Cimpeanu and junior and No. 2 singles player Sarah Hackman.
Cimpeanu, a two-time first-team All-G-MAC player, is 5-4 this season at No. 1 singles, and Hackman, a first-team All-G-MAC player in 2019, is 4-3 at No. 2 singles.
Sophomore Canela Luna (7-2 at No. 2 and 3 singles) and junior Sophia Spinazze (8-3 at 3, 4 and 5 singles) have also been key players in Hillsdale's lineup throughout the year.
On the men's side, the Chargers have cruised to a 13-2 overall record and a perfect 5-0 mark in conference play, earning the top seed in the G-MAC tournament and their highest NCAA regional ranking (fifth) since restarting the program in 2015.
Hillsdale opens the G-MAC Tourney on Friday at 1:30 p.m. CT against fourth-seeded Findlay. A win would advance the Chargers to the Saturday final at 2 p.m., where Hillsdale would compete for its first conference tournament title since 2018 and its second-ever against the winner of the other semifinal between second-seeded Walsh and third-seeded Tiffin.
The Chargers return just two players who saw action in the last G-MAC Tournament – junior Brian Hackman, who was Hillsdale's No. 5 singles player then, and senior Gabe Katz, who was the No. 6 singles player.
A lineup that includes one sophomore and three freshmen have carried the Chargers to the top as a program. Hillsdale has dominated in doubles play in the G-MAC, going a perfect 15-0 in all three doubles flights across five conference matches.
That gives the Chargers a huge advantage entering singles play in nearly every match. Freshman Brennan Cimpeanu has been excellent at No. 2 singles and No. 2 doubles for the Chargers, posting a perfect 12-0 record in singles play and a 14-1 record in doubles with Katz as his partner this spring. In the three matches Cimpeanu played that went unfinished, he was ahead or tied in all of them.
Sophomore Tyler Conrad has held his own despite an extreme jump up in competition from No. 5 singles as a freshman to Hillsdale's every-day No. 1 singles player, posting a 9-5 record, and freshmen Daniel Gilbert and Sean Barstow, as well as Hackman and Katz, have all been among the top players at their positions in the conference this season, with all six Hillsdale players sitting in the top 15 in the league in singles winning percentage.