BATON ROUGE — For the first time in 12 years, the Lady Tigers are not among the field of 64 teams to earn a bid to the NCAA Women’s Tennis Tournament.
The NCAA announced the 2006 tournament field on ESPN News on Wednesday, and despite a 12-12 record and two late-season upsets over Arkansas, the LSU women’s tennis team failed to make the list for a 12th straight year.
LSU, who won three of its last five matches to end the regular season, recorded three wins over teams in this year’s field. The Lady Tigers defeated Rice, 4-3, to give head coach Tony Minnis his 200th career victory early in the season. The Owls travel to TCU for a first-round match-up with the 16th-seeded Horned Frogs.
The Lady Tigers also defeated conference rival Arkansas twice in one week. They handed the Lady ?Backs a 5-2 loss to conclude the regular season and knocked them out of the Southeastern Conference Tournament, 4-2, the following Thursday. Arkansas will face Texas in Fort Worth, Texas, in the first round.
LSU has made the field every year since 1995 before this one, including a trip to the Sweet 16 in 2000.
Stanford earned the tournament’s top overall seed, followed by Notre Dame, USC and conference rival Florida. In fact, this year’s field consists of eight SEC teams, including No. 4 seed Florida and No. 12 seed Vanderbilt who will both play host to opening-round action.
The Lady Tigers lose four seniors, but will return three members from the 2006 squad next season. Sophomore Staten Spencer is also expected to return after sitting out the year with an injury. LSU’s incoming class was also tabbed as the No. 17 class in the nation by tennisrecruiting.net.