Women's Tennis Finishes Second At LMC Tournament; Murakami Player of Year
Oct. 7, 2003
The Lakeland College Women's Tennis Team finished second at the Lake Michigan Conference Tournament held Oct. 5th and 6th in Madison. The Muskies finished with 31.5 points, 12.5 points behind winner Wisconsin Lutheran (44 points). Edgewood College placed third with 30 points, Concordia took fourth with 17.5 points, Marian College finished fifth with 6.5 points and MSOE completed the scoring with a sixth place finish (4 points).

Individually for Lakeland, Hanaka Murakami and Heidi Heling (Howards Grove, WI) led the way with first place finishes at #1 and #3 singles respectively. Murakami won 6-0, 6-3 over her opponent from Concordia and Heling defeated her opponent from Marian 6-3, 6-3. Both were repeats on the All-conference Team.

Murakami was named Player of the Year for the conference and was clearly deserving of the reward. She finished 11-0 in singles and 9-1 in doubles. The doubles loss, 8-4 to Edgewood's #1 team in the semi-finals, was her only loss during her two years at Lakeland. In singles, Murakami lost a total of 16 games this year in the 22 sets she played. Not one opponent won more than three games from her.

"Not only is Hanaka the best player that I've ever coached, I think she is the best player in the conference during the fifteen years that I have been coaching," said head coach Mike Devaney. "She can play with finesse or power, has all of the shots and is smart enough to know which shot to use. She continually frustrated very good players on other teams with her ability to come up with winners when she had a slight advantage," added Devaney.

Overall, Wisconsin Lutheran just had too much depth. They won six of the nine flights, including all three doubles. Lakeland won the two flights already mentioned and Edgewood won #4 singles.

The tournament ended in exciting fashion for Lakeland as they battled Edgewood for second place. With the last three matches on the court, Edgewood was ahead by 2 1/2 points. But the Muskies managed to win all three matches to secure second place. Heling's victory gave Lakeland two points, while third place finishes by Lisa Hentges at #4 and Sarah Wall at #6 gave the Muskies a point each for the final margin.

Other finishes for Lakeland included a second place finish at #2 singles by Cody Carlson (Cleveland, WI), a fifth place finish by Andrea Schuchart at #5 singles, a third place finish by Murakami/Carlson at #1 doubles, a second place finish by Heling/Hentges at #2 doubles, and a fourth place finish by Wall/Meggan Saak (Sheboygan South) at #3 doubles.

Besides Player of the Year honors, other awards went to Emily Henrich of Wisconsin Lutheran for Rookie of the Year and Dave Larson, also of Wisconsin Lutheran, for Coach of the Year.