After beating Laredo Community College sophomore Cledson Carvalho, the number-one-ranked junior college player in the country, in three sets at last month's ITA Southwest Regional Championships, Collin's own Damian Hume, a second-semester freshman, won the whole shebang at the ITA National Small College Championships in Mobile, Alabama this past weekend. And, on top of winning the tournament, Damian was awarded the 2009 James O'Hara Sargent Sportsmanship Award.
The Small College Championships bring together the very best players from community colleges (both NJCAA and California), NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, and the NAIA for a unique event in college sports. After a playoff to determine which of the eight best players in each division deserves the number-one ranking in that division, the four winners play each other in the ‘Super Bowl' to determine who will earn a berth in the ITA National Collegiate Indoor Championships (the NCAA Division I Fall national championship tournament), which this year will be held November 5-8 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
In the Junior College Division tournament, Hume first faced Lloyd Bruce-Burgess of Cowley County Community College in Kansas. After a tough first set, Damian prevailed by a score of 7-5, 6-1. In the semis, he then dispatched the California champion, Kirill Sinitsyn of Fresno City College 6-4, 6-2. The JuCo finals saw a hard-fought re-match between Hume and Carvalho of Laredo. Although it took him five set points to win each set, Damian managed to defeat his nemesis once again by a score of 7-5, 6-3 to retain the title of the number-one junior college player in the country.
In his first match in the Super Bowl, the Collin freshman faced a surprisingly tough John Watts of NCAA Division III Washington University in St. Louis. However, after dropping his first set of the tournament, Hume cruised home to a 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory. In the finals, he played his best match of the tournament against his toughest opponent yet, the NAIA Champion, Alberto Romero Gonzalez of Auburn Montgomery University in Alabama. Having won the first set 6-4, and up 4-5 in the second with Gonzales serving, Damian came back from a love-40 deficit to take the Super Bowl championship and earn his ticket to New Haven.
We would like to congratulate Damian Hume on being the first community college player since 2001 to win the ITA National Small College Championships and to wish him great luck at Yale!
For more information on the tournament, please go to http://www.itatennis.com/Events/ITANationalChampionships/SmallCollege.htm.
For further details of the James O'Hara Sargent Sportsmanship Award, go to http://www.itatennis.com/AboutITA/News/Collin_County_s_Hume__Chicago_s_Higgins_receive_James_O__Hara_Sargent_Sportsmanship_Awards_presented_by_Rolex_Watch_USA.htm.
