Amanda Barkema was named the head men's and women's tennis coach at Knox College on May 27.

Barkema is currently working at the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines, Iowa, where she teaches clinics and organizes the tennis pro shop. A 2008 graduate of Wartburg College, where she earned her degree in Business Administration and a minor in Accounting, Barkema was a four-year tennis letter winner for the Knights.

Barkema worked as a student assistant tennis recruiter and assistant equipment manager at Wartburg in 2007-08. She served as an assistant junior varsity tennis coach at Waverly-Shell Rock High School from 2005-07.

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The Grinnell women’s tennis team fell to Coe 5-0 in the first round of the 2008 NCAA Women’s Tennis Tournament on May 1. The match played out on the campus of Gustavus Adolphus in Saint Peter, Minnesota, as Coe advanced to the second round to face Whea ton (IL).

Coe opened the match by sweeping the three doubles points, despite a strong effort by sophomores Jill Akiyama and Kelsey Picken, who fell 8-5 in the No. 3 flight. The Kohawks then won the No. 1 and No. 2 singles flights to clinch the victory.

Grinnell closes out the 2007-08 season with a 17-5 overall record.

The Grinnell women’s tennis team claimed the 2007 Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Team Championship in mid-October in Rockford, Illinois and will now have the chance to participate in the 2008 NCAA Women’s Tennis Tournament.

Women’s tennis is a fall sport in the MWC, while the NCAA designates it as a spring sports and holds its Championship accordingly.

Grinnell will travel to Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota where they will face Coe in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Pioneers (17-4) and Kohawks (22-3) will meet on Thursday, May 1 at noon. The winner of the match will advance to face Wheaton (IL) at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 2 in Saint Peter.

Grinnell received the MWC’s automatic qualifier to the NCAA tourney after its victory in October, while Coe (22-3) also enters via an AQ after winning the IIAC Championship this season.

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Lake Forest Athletic Director Jackie Slaats announced on November 28 that Chris Pier (right) has been promoted from assistant to head coach of the Forester women’s tennis program. The change follows the resignation of Chuck Sheftel after two seasons with the team.

Pier has been with the tennis program for 12 years. She was the head coach from 1996-98 and spent the last nine seasons assisting Sheftel (2006-07) and Chris Conger (1999-2005). During her time with the Foresters the team has posted a 100-73-2 overall record and 25-6 mark in Midwest Conference South Division play. Lake Forest captured MWC championships in 1999 and 2003 and qualified for the four-team MWC Championship Tournament in each year of the event’s existence.

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Beloit and Grinnell were the big winners on the third and final day (October 14) of action at the 2007 Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Championships at the Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wis.

Grinnell won four of the six singles flights that were contested, while Beloit took the remaining two, which were also the top flights.

Beloit sophomore Hannah Perwin (right) knocked off two-time defending MWC champ Katye O’Brien from St. Norbert in the semifinals and then downed Lake Forest’s Alli Berry for her first career singles title. Perwin’s sophomore teammate Erika Zevin won her second career singles title, moving up one flight from a year ago to take the No. 2 singles crown.

The remaining hardware went home to Grinnell, as junior Maya Lipert, junior Katie Colver (left), senior Margaret Block and sophomore Jill Akiyama won the No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 singles flights, respectively.

Colver has now won singles titles in each of her three collegiate seasons and could become the first four-time champion in league history next year. Lipert won her second career singles title, as did Akiyama and Block, who are both repeat champions at their respective flights.

Grinnell came away with a pair of doubles titles and a trio of record-setting performers, while St. Norbert repeated in the top doubles flight at the 2007 Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Championships in Madison, Wis., on Saturday, October 13.

St. Norbert’s Kayte O’Brien and Lauren Post rallied to defeat Beloit’s Hannah Perwin and Erika Zevin to repeat as MWC No. 1 doubles champions. After dropping their first set 6-4, the duo won the final two sets 7-5, 7-5.

Only four players in conference history had won three career doubles titles entering Saturday, but that number grew quickly for Grinnell.

Grinnell juniors Katie Colver and Maya Lipert won their third straight doubles title as a tandem, winning in the No. 2 flight for the second year in a row. The Pioneers Camila Alarcon and Margaret Block won the No. 3 flight, giving Alarcon the third doubles title of her career.

Grinnell had a new head coach in 2007, but the final result was the same, as the Pioneers captured their fourth consecutive and fifth overall Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Team Championship at the Boylan Tennis Center in Rockford, Ill., on Friday, October 12. With the win, Grinnell matches Ripon’s streak from 1988-1991 as the longest consecutive team title streak in MWC history and Beloit for the total number of overall MWC championships.

Grinnell faced St. Norbert in the tourney finals for the third straight year, downing the Green Knights 5-0 for the crown. Grinnell captured all three doubles points to open the match and Katie Colver (#4) and Jill Akiyama (#6) followed with singles victories to clinch the title.

Grinnell and St. Norbert advanced to the finals with identical 5-0 victories over Carroll and Lake Forest, respectively. Carroll defeated Lake Forest 5-2 in the third-place match.

The 2007 Midwest Conference Women’s Tennis Championships will play out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday October 12-14. The MWC Team Champion will be crowned at the Boylan Indoor Tennis Center in Rockford, Ill., on Friday. The action then shifts to the University of Wisconsin’s Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wis., where the individual doubles and singles champions will be crowned on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

St. Norbert junior Kayte O’Brien (right) can make history this weekend, as she has the chance to become the second player in MWC history to win three singles titles at the No. 1 flight.

The team tourney will feature Carroll (11-2, 3-1 MWC), St. Norbert (5-7, 4-0), Lake Forest (6-5, 2-1) and three-time defending team champion Grinnell (10-2, 3-0). Grinnell will face Carroll in one semifinal, while St. Norbert and Lake Forest meet in the other semifinal for the third year in a row. Both semifinals are scheduled to start at 8 a.m.

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Midwest Conference women’s tennis players from Grinnell, Illinois College and Lake Forest will compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Associations (ITA) regional tennis tournaments on Friday, Saturday and Sunday September 21-23.

Illinois College’s Candice Norville will compete in the singles tournament in the Central Regional, hosted by DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.

Lake Forest’s Alli Berry will be joined by five Grinnell student-athletes in singles action at the Midwest Regional at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minn.

Grinnell’s participants include Katie Colver, Rachel Engh, Camilla Alarcon, Maya Lipert and Susan Klumpner. Engh is a three-time MWC singles champion, while Alarcon and Colver have each won two singles titles. Lipert also owns a singles title.

Lake Forest’s Berry will be joined by teammate Anne DeMare in doubles play, while Margaret Block teams with Alarcon to form one of three Grinnell doubles tandems scheduled for action (Colver/Lipert, Klumpner/Engh). Colver and Lipert have teamed up for a pair of MWC doubles crowns thus far in their careers.

Following the resignation of head coach Barb Waite on June 1, Grinnell has announced that head men’s tennis coach and head women’s basketball coach Andy Hamilton (right) will serve as the interim women’s tennis coach during the 2007 season. Hamilton has guided the Grinnell men’s tennis team since 1996, leading the Pioneers to five MWC titles during that time, including the last four in a row.

Hamilton inherits a women’s tennis team that has won three consecutive MWC team crowns and returns four regulars from a year ago.

Grinnell women’s tennis coach Barb Waite (right), who has led the Pioneers to three straight Midwest Conference team titles, has announced her resignation.

During her tenure at Grinnell, the women’s tennis program has become an elite team in the conference as well as the region.  The team has made six straight appearances in the conference tournament and earned the conference’s first automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament this spring. Grinnell has won 27 matches over the past three seasons, including a perfect 12-0 mark in conference play.

In her final season as coach, the Pioneers captured four individual conference titles as well as one doubles title.  Waite has also served as an assistant coach for the Pioneer softball team for the past four seasons.

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Kevin Girard (right) is the new tennis coach at Lawrence University, Director of Athletics Robert Beeman announced Tuesday (May 22).

Girard, who will take over both the Viking men's and women's teams, comes to Lawrence from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he has served as the assistant men's and women's tennis coach since September 2005.

While at Carnegie Mellon, Girard helped craft both the men's and women's teams into some of the best squads in the nation. The Tartans have had eight All-Americans and 10 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar Athletes during Girard's tenure.

A 2003 graduate of Michigan Technological University, Girard has a bachelor's degree in biological sciences and he holds the highest possible certification from the Professional Tennis Registry. A four-year letterwinner for the Huskies, he is the school's career leader in doubles victories.

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