05-10-2018, 08:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2018, 09:29 AM by ColoradoTree.)
FYI, as you might expect, Stanford dominated the Pac-12 women's tennis awards:
* Lele Forood is the Pac-12 Coach of the Year
* Michaela Gordon is the Freshman of the Year
* Gordon/Arbuthnott are the Doubles Team of the Year
The only one of the 4 big awards that Stanford didn't win was Singles Player of the Year, which reasonably went to UCLA's Ena Shibahara.
Gordon also made the All-Conference first team (which is basically just the top 6 #1 singles players), Lord made the second team, and Lampl, Arbuthnott, Shin, and Higuchi were all Honorable Mention. Stanford was the only team to get all six singles players some sort of All-Conference honors. Those six honors, plus the three listed above, mean that Stanford got a program-record nine All-Conference honors, beating the previous program record of six.
Forood's Coach of the Year honor is her sixth, but somehow, her first since 2011, and we've won two national titles since then! I'm not in the room voting on it, but if I had to guess why she's overlooked, I'd say it's usually because we have the best talent in the conference. Our recruiting classes are usually best in the conference, so when you win with the best talent, that's sort of what you're supposed to do, so the awards often go to someone else. ASU's coach won it two years ago when ASU had a surprisingly good season. Cal's coach won it in 2014, and USC's coach won it in 2015, when each team rolled through the conference undefeated. Sure, fine, whatever. And last year, USC's Richard Gallien got it as sort of a career capstone, as he retired after the season. The coaches vote on the award, so it makes sense they'd give it to a longtime successful coach on his way out the door, even though USC's season last year was an objective disappointment (USC went 6-4 in conference play and 13-11 overall, and got upset in the first round of NCAAs), and Lele had a significantly better season (undefeated in conference play and swept the regular season and conference tournament titles, despite not getting great play from the #1 spot in the lineup).
* Lele Forood is the Pac-12 Coach of the Year
* Michaela Gordon is the Freshman of the Year
* Gordon/Arbuthnott are the Doubles Team of the Year
The only one of the 4 big awards that Stanford didn't win was Singles Player of the Year, which reasonably went to UCLA's Ena Shibahara.
Gordon also made the All-Conference first team (which is basically just the top 6 #1 singles players), Lord made the second team, and Lampl, Arbuthnott, Shin, and Higuchi were all Honorable Mention. Stanford was the only team to get all six singles players some sort of All-Conference honors. Those six honors, plus the three listed above, mean that Stanford got a program-record nine All-Conference honors, beating the previous program record of six.
Forood's Coach of the Year honor is her sixth, but somehow, her first since 2011, and we've won two national titles since then! I'm not in the room voting on it, but if I had to guess why she's overlooked, I'd say it's usually because we have the best talent in the conference. Our recruiting classes are usually best in the conference, so when you win with the best talent, that's sort of what you're supposed to do, so the awards often go to someone else. ASU's coach won it two years ago when ASU had a surprisingly good season. Cal's coach won it in 2014, and USC's coach won it in 2015, when each team rolled through the conference undefeated. Sure, fine, whatever. And last year, USC's Richard Gallien got it as sort of a career capstone, as he retired after the season. The coaches vote on the award, so it makes sense they'd give it to a longtime successful coach on his way out the door, even though USC's season last year was an objective disappointment (USC went 6-4 in conference play and 13-11 overall, and got upset in the first round of NCAAs), and Lele had a significantly better season (undefeated in conference play and swept the regular season and conference tournament titles, despite not getting great play from the #1 spot in the lineup).