After finishing up the regular season we went back to our January routine and focused on conditioning and weight lifting.  We trained hard for 3 days in order to prepare ourselves for the Peach Belt Conference Tournament.  Playing a tournament requires us to be very physically fit due to the fact that it requires us to play 3 matches in a row.  On Friday we traveled to Atlanta and while the guys played their first match we had a practice to prepare us for our first match the next morning.  After a good practice all the girls were adjusted to the new courts and surroundings and headed to the hotel to get ready for the awards banquet.  The whole team was dressed up nicely in their suits and dresses.  While we ate our dinners we received the awards.  Miss Novakova won ever possible award that a person could win in this event.  She swept the two most prestigous awards.  The player of the year award and freshman of the year award.  Martina, Alida, and myself also received awards for our singles and doubles performances.  We have all agreed that Martina was the most determined to recieve her award seeing as how she walked in a near sprint to the front of the room, even forgetting to get her picture taken. haha

The next day it was a struggle to wake up.  We had to wake up at 545 and warm up before the sun had risen.  We started our match at 8am and defeated USC Aiken 5-0.  Our next Semi-Final match conditionings were perfect.  The sun was shining and the air was perfect for playing tennis.  We competed against the host team, Clayton State.  We gave up one close doubles match at Number 3 and started singles up 2-1.  Fortunately we won 3 straight singles, bringing us to a 5-1 victory and a spot in the Peach Belt Conference Championships. 

Due to the prediction of rain on the Championship day we weren't able to find out our match time for the next day until 1015pm the night before.  The morning started off with a rain delay which pushed our match back by an hour.  While waiting for the courts to dry the coaches and officials made the decision to make a 45 minute drive to play the match on Indoor Courts.  With all the delays and unexpected match times it was important that we kept our bodies fueled with plenty of food throughout the day.  This meant after having our breakfast at 8am and our lunch at 10am we would end up eating our dinner at 3pm.  We started the match at 430 and had a little bit of a shocking starting going down 2-1 after doubles.  That was the first time we have been down after doubles this year.  We prepared ourselves for a fight in the singles matches.  We won 3 straight singles in 2 straight sets.  Then we lost 1 and it came down to 2 of the freshman and Kathleen won her match completing the day with a 5-3 win over Francis Marion. 

We are happy to have won the Peach Belt Conference Tournament for the 6th straight year.  Go Pirates!!!!!!