St. Mary's University News Center

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SAN ANTONIO — For Erica Carmona and Kelly Cooper, their source of inspiration during this women’s tennis season was simple.

Their first–year coach, Lisa Dausin, showed them from the start that she believed in them.

Her faith proved well–placed, as the St. Mary’s senior duo helped spark a successful season—one that came to an end over the weekend after advancing a round in the Heartland Conference Tournament at the South Austin Tennis Center in Austin, Texas.

And for their success, Carmona and Cooper delivered a heartfelt message of appreciation toward Dausin during their speech at St. Mary’s 2012 Athletics Banquet on Tuesday night.

St. Mary’s (9–15) knocked off Newman 5–1 in the quarterfinals before falling to Dallas Baptist 5–2 in a hard–fought semifinals showdown.

St. Mary’s went 2–1 in doubles action against Newman, with Cooper (Sr., San Antonio) and Elisha Bryant (Jr., Plano, Texas) teaming to take down Emily Gerber and Jess Brown, 8–6, and Valentine Lambrechts (Jr., Belgium) and Angelique De Oliveira (Sr., Wattrelos, France) winning their match 8–6 as well.

On the singles side, De Oliveira won 6–3, 6–2, while Denissia Gonzalez prevailed over Jess Brown 6–0, 6–2. Bryant also won her match 6–3, 6–3.

Against DBU, De Oliveira picked up a critical 6–2, 6–0 win over Leah Rutt, but the Rattlers narrowly fell in the other singles matches. Cooper and Bryant teamed to pick up a doubles win, beating Leah Smith and Lexi Yeado 8–5.

St. Mary’s University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men’s basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men’s golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men’s golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary’s also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary’s student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.stmarytx.edu/athletics.