It was literally a dream come true for the Oregon women’s tennis team.
“It was in my dream. I dreamed the other day that we’d make the NCAA tournament,” sophomore Ceci Olivos said, grinning.
The NCAA tournament selection committee fulfilled Olivos’ dream and breathed new life into the Ducks’ season when the women were awarded one of 64 available berths to the national tournament Tuesday afternoon.
Despite ending the season by losing seven out of its last nine matches, winning only two Pacific-10 Conference matches all season, and crashing out of the Pac-10 Tournament in the first round last week, Oregon will travel to Palo Alto, Calif. next Wednesday to take on Brigham Young in the first round of the national tournament.
“Am I surprised? No. Am I elated? Yes,” Oregon coach Paul Reber said. “With the rankings the way they were and us being ranked 41st, I felt fairly good about us getting into the tournament.
“But until you actually get in, you’re holding out a little bit of doubt.”
Reber had originally told the team to gather at 2:30 p.m. so that they could all watch the tournament selection show together in the tennis locker room.
But then early yesterday morning, he realized that the show was scheduled to air at 2:30 p.m. EST. So by the time the women came together in the team room at 2:30 p.m. PST, Reber already knew that the Ducks had made it to the tournament, and he sprang the news on the team.
None of the women actually appeared all that surprised.
“Well, Paul was really confident. I wasn’t very confident at the beginning, but once I saw what we were ranked, I kinda figured it’d be pretty bad if they didn’t take us,” sophomore Carmen Seremeta said. “So after the rankings came out it was kinda like, ‘Yeah, we should make it.’ So I guess it wasn’t that much of a surprise.
“It’s still very exciting though because after not making it last year, it wasn’t like we were 100 percent sure we were going to make it this year.”
Last year, with three freshmen on the roster, the Ducks finished the season ranked No. 48 and missed out on the tournament for the first time in two years.
As far as senior Dominika Dieskova is concerned, Oregon’s return to the tournament is a good way to end her career as a Duck.
“We played in Stanford (at the tournament) two years ago, and it’s my favorite place to play,” Dieskova said. “It’s my favorite place to play and to play there my senior year, with this great team that we have this year, and after we’ve had a pretty tough time with injuries and all, it’s just really exciting that we made it.”
Dieskova said she was initially skeptical about the team’s post-season chances.
“I wasn’t really expecting it because the year didn’t go the way I wanted it to go for the team, so I was a little more skeptical about it,” she said. “But it just shows that the Pac-10 is such a strong conference that even if we didn’t really win that many Pac-10 matches we can make it to NCAAs. And I think that’s amazing. It shows we’re the best conference in the U.S.”
The Ducks finished the season with a 12-11 overall record and a 2-8 Pac-10 record. If they beat Brigham Young in the first round, they will play the winner of the Sacramento State-Stanford match.
Stanford, the No. 1 seed and defending national champion, finished the season 20-1 and is expected to repeat as champions this season.
“This is fantastic for us,” Reber said. “It’s great to send the two seniors we have out on this note, great for them to make the NCAAs. And for the ones who are coming back, this is the standard I want to have for the team.”
For now, Olivos’ dream about the team making the national tournament ended up coming true, so she’s hoping that dreaming about success on the national stage will work in the Ducks’ favor too.
“Maybe I need to have a dream about us winning the tournament now,” she said, laughing.
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