SURPRISE, Ariz.--Do you believe in miracles? The UH Hilo men's tennis team does.

The Vulcans won their second championship this season in dramatic fashion, this time rallying from a 3-2 deficit for a 4-3 win over Hawai`i Pacific in the finals of the NCAA Division II West Region Championships. UH Hilo will head to the NCAA Championships for the third consecutive season, which will be held May 18-20, also at the Surprise Tennis and Racquet Center.

"I'm proud of the way the guys fought until the very end," said head coach Kallen Mizuguchi after the match. "This was a stronger HPU team than we played at conference two weeks ago (a 4-1 UHH win), and it shows the kind of program that Hendrik (Bode) runs and how hard those guys can fight. It has always been a team win, and everyone plays a big role on this team."

Two weeks ago, the Vulcans upset Azusa Pacific for the Pacific West Conference Championships, 4-3, with Luca Checchia winning the clinching match after being down a set. Today, Checchia shared steel nerves honors with Alessio Demichelis.

Down 3-2 in the team score, Demichelis faced two match points trailing 5-4 in the third set to Felix Einig, with the Shark serving. If Einig wins either one of two points, he wins the match and HPU wins the region title.

But Demichelis found a way to win the next two points and broke back to 5-5. That duo eventually headed to a tiebreaker. Meanwhile Checchia was having his own battle on court four, with both teams switching back and forth between the courts to cheer on their mates.

Earlier, the Vulcans had won the doubles point with Martin Soukal and Santiago Di Loreto winning on court one (6-4) and Demichelis and Chun En Wu winning by the same count on court three.

But the Sharks quickly made up the deficit by winning on singles court six and then again on court three to take a 2-1 lead. On court three, En Wu had rallied from being down 5-2 in the second set but Killian Maitre held on for a 7-5, 6-4 win.

Soukal continued his winning ways with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Benjamin Loccasano on the stadium court to even the score at 2-2. Ryohei Arai then put HPU back on top with a hard-fought 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) win over Di Loreto on court five.

Which brings us back to court two. Demichelis had won the first set (6-4) and Einig the second (6-3). The uber athletic duo took turns breaking each other with Demichelis breaking back for the 5-5 tie. Same thing during the next two games--two breaks to 6-6 and on to the tiebreaker.

The UHH freshman from Italy took a quick lead at 4-1, and then hit a beautiful, gutsy drop shot from the baseline that even the fleet footed Einig couldn't get to to make it 5-1. A few points later, Demichelis had the 7-2 tiebreaker win to even the team score at 3-3.

Enter Checchia, who was a set down against Azusa Pacific and came back to win the last point of the match for the PacWest title. Similar today, he dropped the first set to Marcel Hornung (6-3), but won the second set by the same score. Leading 6-5 in the third set, he scored the final point of the match within a minute of Demichelis' winner, sending the Vulcans to a big group hug and celebration for the second time in two weeks.

"It's nice to have these wins (APU and HPU) fall on our side, because they could have gone either way," Mizuguchi added. "We will now rest up and recover these next few days and then get back to work."

Demichelis and Checchia get the drama points, but Soukal perhaps gets the style points for his wins the past two weeks over Loccanso (twice) and the PacWest Player of the Year, Jakob Schnaitter. Either the big games suit the Vulcan junior and/or the hot desert sun in Arizona.

"Martin has lost only one set in three seasons of tournaments here in Surprise," Mizuguchi confirmed. "He has been playing so big for us here."

The Vulcans will now wait to hear where they will be seeded at the national championships on these same courts. Unlike years past, only one team from each of the NCAA's eight regions will be in the tournament, and it will be seeded 1-8. The Vulcans are ranked No. 6 in the latest national rankings and are now 10-2 on the season.

MATCH RESULTS--NCAA West Region Championship
Surprise Tennis & Racquet Center, Surprise, Arizona
#6 Hawaii Hilo 4, #12 Hawai'i Pacific 3

SINGLES COMPETITION
1. #22 Martin Soukal (UHH) def. Benjamin Loccisano (HPU) 6-4, 6-2
2. Alessio Demichelis (UHH) def. #36 Felix Einig (HPU) 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2)
3. Kilian Maitre (HPU) def. Chun En Wu (UHH) 7-5, 6-4
4. Luca Checchia (UHH) def. Marcel Hornung (HPU) 3-6, 6-3, 7-5
5. Ryohei Arai (HPU) def. Santiago Di Loreto (UHH) 6-3, 7-6 (7-2)
6. Cheng-Chieh Wang (HPU) def. Luca Matheiowetz (UHH) 6-2, 6-2
Order of finish: 6-3-1-5-2-4

DOUBLES COMPETITION
1. Soukal/Di Loreto (UHH) def. Loccisano/Hornung (HPU) 6-4
2. Einig/Wang (HPU) def. Checchia/Joshua Liu (UHH) 6-1
3. En Wu/Demichelis (UHH) def. Arai/Maitre (HPU) 6-4.
Order of finish: 2-1-3
Time: 3 hours and 10 minutes
RECORDS: #6 Hawaii Hilo 10-2, #12 Hawaii Pacific 6-5