DALY CITY, California – Hawai'i Hilo Women's Tennis closed its opening weekend with its first loss of the season, 4-3, to Academy of Art Monday morning at Bay Club SF Tennis.

ART U managed to fire out fast and furious with quick 6-2 and 6-1 doubles wins on Courts 2 and 3, respectively, to take a 1-0 advantage. The Urban Knights then sealed up the match victory with singles wins on Courts 1-3.

Still, the Vulcans continued to fight it out on Courts 4-6 with Satoho Toriumi, Julia Barden and Hana Hofmanova battling through a handful of tiebreakers to claim singles victories for a final score of 4-3.

Hawai'i Hilo finished 2-1 through its Northern-California season-opening weekend of play.

"This first outing was a very positive one," Vulcans sixth-year head coach Kallen Mizuguchi said. "For most of the team, it was their first matches since April 2023. The fact that they were able to compete and succeed in majority of their matches is very impressive. I'm looking forward to the unfolding of this season.

SINGLES WINS

4. [UHH] S. Toriumi def. [ARTU] E. Najean — (7-6, 3-6, 10-8)
5. [UHH] J. Barden def. [ARTU] L. Viktoria — (7-6, 7-5)
6. [UHH] H. Hofmanova def. [ARTU] E. Hellbe — (3-6, 6-3, 10-5)

UP NEXT

Hawai'i Hilo moved to 2-1 overall while Academy of Art moved to a 4-1 record.

The Vulcans will hop over to O'ahu next weekend for matchups with Chaminade (March 2), Dominican (March 3) and HPU (March 4).

Pacific West Conference Championship is set for April 17-20 at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex in Arizona.