SURPRISE, Ariz. – Hawai'i Pacific University won its first PacWest Conference Women's Tennis Championship with a 5-3 victory over Academy of Art Saturday at the Surprise Tennis and Racquet Center.
 
The No. 2 Sharks (18-2) won four of the finished singles flights to win the title and win their seventh straight match. The No. 11 Urban Knights (16-5) won two of the three doubles points and battled to the very end.
 
The Sharks got the clinching point at No. 6 singles, where junior Barbora Kijasova from Ostrava, Czech Republic, defeated ARTU's Paula Alcantara. Kijasova lost the first set 6-2, but fought back to take the second from Alcantara 7-5 and gave the Sharks the title by winning 6-4 in the third.
 
The win capped the comeback for the Sharks, who claimed the top three singles spots as well.
 
Top-ranked Lena Lutzeier started off the singles comeback for the Sharks with a 6-1, 6-2 win over 11th ranked Monika Stanikova at No. 1. At No. 2,  ninth-ranked Lara Meccico beat 41st-ranked Klara Thell-Lenntorp 6-0, 7-5 (4) to give HPU a 3-2 lead. Then 22nd ranked Oceane Adam completed a win at No. 3 over Maria Andrisani 6-2, 6-4 to put the Sharks up 4-2.
 
The Urban Knights got a point back at No. 5 singles, as Alma Thell-Lenntorp beat Leticia Gonzalez dos Santo 6-3, 6-1.
 
It was then that Kijasova battled back to split at No. 6, as did Debora Echeverria at No. 4. Echeverria lost the first set to Taisiia Andreieiva 7-5, but came back to split with a 6-3 win in the second set. Echeverria was up 4-3 when it was pulled on the Sharks victory by Kijasova.
 
HPU was down early in doubles. Stanikova/Alcantara beat the Sharks Echeverria/dos Santos 8-1 at No. 3, but the Sharks came back with an 8-1 win by Meccico/Kijasova over Andrieieva/Andrisani at No. 2. The Urban Knights took the advantage at No. 1, as the 14th ranked Thell-Lenntorp twins beat the Sharks ninth ranked Lutzeier and Adams 8-5.
 
The victory for the Sharks was extra special. HPU had appeared in the final in four of the five previous championships, but the win was the first in the championship match since the tournament began in 2013.
 
HPU, who came into the conference tournament as the No. 1 team in the NCAA Division II's West Region, now prepares to host an NCAA Tournament Regional Match next Saturday, April 28. The national committee will announce the Sharks opponent during the regional selection show on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. HST (8:30 p.m. EDT) on NCAA.com