Southern Collegiate
Athletic Conference
Sports Release

Centre ● DePauw ● Hendrix ● Millsaps ● Oglethorpe
Rhodes ● Rose-Hulman ● Sewanee ● Southwestern ● Trinity

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 10, 2006 / Contact: Dwayne Hanberry, SCAC Associate Commissioner

DEPAUW’S BONDI, WEBELER HEADLINE 2006 ALL-SCAC TENNIS TEAMS

SUWANEE, Ga. - In exclusive voting by the head coaches in the league, Liz Bondi and Evan Webeler – both of DePauw University – have been selected the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Tennis Players-of-the-Year for the 2006 season. For Bondi, it is the second consecutive year she has won the award.

In that same balloting, DePauw’s Scott Riggle was voted the league’s Women’s Coach-of-the-Year while Butch Newman of Trinity University was voted Men’s COTY.

Bondi, a senior from Park Ridge, Ill., becomes the first women’s player to earn consecutive Player-of-the-Year honors since Trinity’s Lizzie Yasser won the award three straight years from 2000-2002. A two-time all-American in both singles and doubles, Bondi is 16-0 in singles play this season and 17-0 in doubles action. The 2005 national singles runner-up, Bondi advanced to the quarterfinals in 2003 and enters this weekend's play with an 87-7 career singles mark. She was a doubles finalist in 2003 and a quarterfinalist last year and has recorded an 88-10 career doubles mark. Bondi has earned the top singles seed in this year’s NCAA Singles Championship, and she and teammate Amrita Padda were selected as the number one seed for the doubles competition. Earlier this year, Bondi was named the SCAC Women’s Basketball Player-of-the-Year, and she remains the only student-athlete in the history of the league to earn POTY honors in two different sports (excluding track and field and cross country).

Webeler, a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio, posted a 22-10 singles record this year and was 12-8 at number one in dual matches. Webeler, who qualifed for the 2006 NCAA Singles Championship, has a career singles record of 59-27 and a doubles mark of 48-31 including a 20-9 mark in 2005-06. An ITA Central Region singles finalist in September 2005, Webeler finished as runner-up in the SCAC POTY voting last year and was fourth as a freshman in 2004.

Newman, wrapping up his 19th season as Trinity’s men's tennis coach, and his 14th as both the men's and women's head coach, has led the men's team to the NCAA Quarterfinals each of the past five seasons - including this year's trip to the final eight. He led the men's and women's teams to the 2000 NCAA Division III National Championship, and at the time, was the first Division III school to win both titles in the same year. The men's team has won 14 of the past 15 SCAC men's tennis championships - including the last 13 in a row.  He has also led the Tigers to 13 straight NCAA playoff appearances. This marks the ninth time in his career that Newman has been named the SCAC Men’s Tennis Coach-of-the-Year. Coupled with his eight women’s COTY awards, his 17 overall honors places him in a tie for second for the most all-time SCAC COTY awards.

Riggle received SCAC Women’s Tennis Coach-of-the-Year honors for the second consecutive year and third time in the last four. He has compiled a 103-46 match at DePauw, including this year’s 24-1 mark, and once again has led the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament – the program’s fifth overall appearance and fourth in his six years at the helm. This year’s Tiger squad has made it to the NCAA Quarterfinals for the second time in program history and first since 2003.