BELTON, Texas – Winning the program's second American Southwest Conference Tournament Championship, East Texas Baptist University won the final match at flight 2, securing a 4-3 victory over top-seeded University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. ETBU receives the automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
 
Bailey Smith went three sets, winning the final two, claiming the victory for ETBU. After falling, 6-4 to UMHB's Lori Bryan in set one, Smith wont 6-3, 6-1 in the final two sets for the match win.
 
"Wow!!! That's all I could say for the first hour after our women won the ASC," said head coach Drew Lambert. "We were the underdogs today, but this team showed they know how to fight. We felt good after the come from behind victory in the semis over HSU, and the team kept believing in each other today all the way."

Smith was named the ASC Tournament MVP and being on the All-Tournament team. Fernanada Ruiz Burkart, Jayde Childress, and Monique Ybarra also made the ASC All-Tournament team. 
 
ETBU opened doubles play with two decisive wins. Smith and Monique Ybarra took a 6-1 win at no. 1 followed by a 6-3 win at no. 3 by Kristyn Dunn and Isabella Macquet. Those two wins gave ETBU the 1-0 lead heading into singles play.
 
Lambert says, "Starting in doubles, our no. 1 team was aggressive from the start and didn't look back, and within about 15 minutes they were up to a 4-0 lead and attacking every ball. Our no. 2 and no. 3 teams were battling very closely, and we just kept talking about not being afraid to miss. Our no. 3 team took that and ran with it as they started going for approaches and then capitalized on them to win their set."
 
Ybarra started singles with the two-set win at no. 1, 6-0, 6-3, over UMHB's Erin Kittredge for a 2-0 lead.
 
"We could tell that momentum was on our side, and we wanted to extend that into singles. Monique jumped out first, winning a massive 6-0 first set. Fernanda and Izzy Macquet did likewise as they grinded down their opponents by making tons of rally balls. Bailey was also grinding with an opponent who played very similarly to her, with lots of long back-and-forth points," said Lambert.
 
UMHB fought back to win no. 3 singles, 6-2, 6-2, over Childress and Dunn fell at no. 5, 6-2, 6-0, as the Crusaders tied the match at two. Macquet took a two-set match over UMHB's Emily Higgs, 6-2, 6-3, to go back up, 3-2. UMHB followed with a three-set win over Fernanda Ruiz Burkart, `1-6, 6-1, 6-0, from Jolin Ha.
 
Coming down to the final point, Smith went three sets a no. 2 for the match win over Bryan for the ASC Championship.
 
"All in all, our entire team just believed they could win and worked their tails off against a very strong UMHB team for an incredible ASC Championship win," quotes Lambert.
 
ETBU is now 8-6 and will await to see where they will play in the NCAA Tournament.