Senior Paige Frost has appeared in the NCAA Tournament all four years of her career, leading the Skyhawks to a fifth-straight bid overall. (PHOTO BY Richard Orr)

Fourth-seeded Skyhawks will host East Regional #1 Saturday and Sunday

NCAA Division II Women's Tennis Championship Field

EASTON, Mass. (April 23, 2013) – Northeast-10 Conference Champions Stonehill College has earned a berth in the NCAA Division II Women's Tennis Championships and will host one of the two East Regional brackets this weekend the NCAA selection committee announced tonight. The Skyhawks are seeded fourth in the East Region and will host matches on Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28, at Charles Watt Tennis Courts.

Stonehill (20-3, 11-1 NE-10) earned the Northeast-10's automatic bid by way of its 5-2 victory over Southern New Hampshire University to claim its fourth NE-10 Championship on Saturday. The Skyhawks earn their fifth-straight NCAA Tournament bid and eighth in program history overall. The Skyhawks will serve as host of one of two East Regional events and will open against fifth-seeded Chestnut Hill (Pa.) College (18-8, 6-2 CACC), ranked 50^th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division II rankings, who earned an at large bid after being runners up at the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Championship last fall, in a first round match on Saturday, April 27, at 11 a.m. The Griffins finished third in the CACC regular season standings last fall and have posted a 7-4 record during the fall season.

The winner will advance to face top-seeded and 15^th-ranked New York Institute of Technology (22-3, 6-1 ECC), who earned the East Coast Conference's automatic qualifier with its 5-4 victory over Queens (N.Y.) College in the ECC Championship last fall, on Sunday at 11 a.m. The winner of the three team regional will advance to the NCAA Championships in Surprise, Ariz., at Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex from May 8-11.

The second East Regional bracket will be hosted at third-seeded and 36^th-ranked Queens (16-2, 7-0 ECC), and also includes second-seeded and 48^th-ranked Concordia (N.Y.) College (14-5, 8-0 CACC), sixth-seeded Goldey-Beacom College (14-5, 7-1 CACC) and seventh-seeded Southern New Hampshire University (16-8, 12-0 NE-10) on Saturday and Sunday.

Stonehill was defeated by fourth-seeded Concordia, 5-3, in last year's opening round. The Skyhawks won their first-ever East Regional title in 2009, advancing to the Round of 16 with a 5-4 win over Queens.

Stonehill, under the direction of head coach Pam Arpe in her ninth season, is led by senior captain Paige Frost (Brigantine, N.J./Holy Spirit), named MVP of the NE-10 Championships over the weekend, who enters the NCAA Tournament with a combined 126-31 (.802) in singles and doubles play over her career and who along with freshman Kirsti Toegemann (Narragansett, R.I./The Lincoln School) are the ninth-ranked doubles team in the East Region by the ITA.

Freshman Bailey Paradiso (Birmingham, Mich./Marian) is ranked 19^th in the ITA East Regional singles rankings, while junior Kaitlyn Martin (Medway, Mass./Medway) and sophomore Meryl Lawrence (North Scituate, R.I./Mount Saint Charles Academy) are also leaders for the Skyhawks and earned NE-10 All-Championship team honors over the weekend. Stonehill has won 20 dual matches for the second time in program history and are just a win shy of matching the program record of 21 wins set in 2008-09.

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2013 NCAA Division II Women's Tennis
East Region #1
Hosted by Stonehill College 

Saturday, April 27
#5 Chestnut Hill at #4 Stonehill, 11 a.m.