JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State men's and women's tennis teams each competed in the ITA Southern Regional Championships over the weekend. The men's tournament was hosted by Auburn University, while the women competed in Baton Rouge, La., at LSU.
 
Cristina Moll Alles and Harriet Hamilton of the women's squad found their way through the qualifying round into the first round of the LSU Regional, while Aljaz Kaplja and Thomas Norwood reached the second round of play in Auburn as a doubles team.
 
"These tournaments feature the best teams in the nation," head coach Andres Amores said. "We didn't see many of our players make it out of qualifying, but it's such a tough tournament.
 
"Despite that, I thought everyone played well. It showed us things we need to work on to get better. I believe if we work hard, we can reach that level of competition."
 
Moll Alles advanced past the preliminary round and was paired against LSU's Taylor Bridges in the round of 64, but fell 6-2 in two sets to the No. 5 seed.
 
Hamilton also advanced past the prelims to compete in the first round, but dropped the round-of-64 decision 6-2, 6-1 to ULM's Emma Billon.
 
Kaplja and Norwood earned a shot in doubles and picked up an 8-6 win over Louisiana's Silvio Cocito-Monoc and Stefan Gazo in the first round, but fell in the round of 32 to LSU's Boris Koslov and Nick Watson 8-1.
 
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