No. 37 Women's Tennis Achieves Highest Ranking Ever
6/21/1999 8:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
April 21, 1999
COLLEGE PARK, Md.-The No. 37 Maryland women's tennis team (12-7) has earned its highest ranking in school history by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The Terps, who previously reached No. 38 on March 9, finished fifth in the ACC this season with a 4-4 record. They will take on fourth-seeded No. 28 North Carolina on April 23 at 6 p.m. in the ACC Championships at the Racquet Club of the South in Norcross, Ga.
Senior Meg Griffin (Topeka, Kan./Topeka West) came to Maryland in 1996 following the Terps' 1-7 conference record from the previous season. Griffin, who finished her junior career ranked No. 31 nationally, made an immediate impact on the team and within two years, she finished in the top 10 for singles in the East Region. As a junior, she was a member of both the All-ACC team and the ACC All-Academic team. This year, she was the No. 1 seed at the ITA East Regional in the fall and won the William & Mary Invitational.
In doubles, Griffin and partner Lorraine Bittles (Nashville, Tenn./Brentwood Academy) have been ranked nationally for the past two seasons. The duo are the first players in Terrapin history to qualify for all four grand slam events (National Indoor Championships, National Clay Court Championships, Riviera All-American Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. Bittles, herself, has also earned high accolades in her two previous seasons including All-ACC in both years and was one of six finalists for national rookie of the year in 1997.
With only six healthy players for the entire season and one of the most rigorous schedules in the nation, the Terps' lineup is solid from No. 1 through No. 6. Junior Stacy Walkowitz (Coral Springs, Fla./Coral Springs) and sophomore Chrissie Terrill (Plano, Tex./The Hockaday School) combined in doubles for a 13-3 record. Individually, Terrill began the 1999 campaign with eight straight dual wins and Walkowitz is currently the hottest Terp, defeating a pair of tough ACC opponents in her last two matches. At the No. 5 spot, senior Adrienne Pavelko (Vienna, Va./Bishop O'Connell) is one of the team leaders and a former All-Metro high school player. Her doubles partner, freshman Courtney Perkins (Seattle, Wash./Mt. Ranier), has tied for the team-high in dual wins this spring with 13 and is expected to be a major part of the next generation in the Maryland women's tennis program.
Entering his ninth season, head coach Jim Laitta (Eastern Kentucky '89) has taken what once was an underfunded program into the national spotlight. Arriving at Maryland in 1991, Laitta began his first season with a team that did not have any scholarship players. In fact, this season will be the first year that the program has eight scholarships, although Laitta has demonstrated his recruiting prowess and on-court coaching abilities by taking his partially-funded teams to the NCAA Tournament twice in the last three years.
In 1996, he led the Terps to the school's first-ever NCAA appearance, as well as a tie for fourth place in the grueling Atlantic Coast Conference. As a result, he was named both ACC and NCAA Region I coach of the year by his peers. In the last three years, Maryland has finished in the top half of the conference and once again qualified for the NCAA Tournament last season.
