HOUSTON – The College of Houston was topped nationwide champion on the 2024 ITA Nationwide Wheelchair Tennis Championships, the premier competitors in all of collegiate wheelchair tennis.
In a outstanding show of talent, dedication, and teamwork, the No. 3 Cougars defeated No. 1 San Diego State in a three-hour match on the USTA Nationwide Campus in Lake Nona, Florida, to win the varsity’s first wheelchair tennis nationwide title.
UH’s group of Jose Arriaga and Nicholas Tijerina received the doubles match 8-6 and Arriaga clinched the title with a 6-2, 5-7, 10-6 victory within the first singles match.
“We have been form of the plucky underdogs, and there have been lots of establishments ranked forward of us early within the season,” stated Michael Cottingham, affiliate professor of well being and human efficiency and director of Adaptive Athletics at UH. “However Nick and Jose had a extremely nice run, and it’s thrilling for us to have that first nationwide championship.”
Head Coach Gabriel Gutierrez, a UH alumnus whose management Cottingham says was instrumental within the group’s success, received ITA Wheelchair Coach of the Yr.
In the course of the season, UH competes in opposition to different universities, however most of its matches are performed in USTA and ITF tournaments in opposition to non-college athletes, so there are alternatives for each college students and non-students with disabilities to compete.
Within the nationwide championships, groups have been allowed one pupil and one non-student athlete.
For UH, Tijerna, who’s working in the direction of his grasp’s in engineering, was the scholar participant whereas Arriaga, a Houstonian who has been coaching with the UH program for a number of years, was the non-student participant.
“This championship not solely solidifies our place as elite rivals, nevertheless it exhibits potential student-athletes that they’ll get top-notch tennis coaching together with nice teachers and an unimaginable faculty expertise,” Cottingham stated. “We wish to herald robust college students who symbolize UH effectively and go on to have profitable careers after tennis.”
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Cottingham hopes the victory propels the UH program to new heights. Quickly there might be a totally funded scholarship for one student-athlete by means of the One Step Nearer Basis. And this summer season, UH will host the ITF Junior Camp of the Americas, a showcase for one of the best 11–18-year-old wheelchair tennis gamers on this planet.
“Our purpose is to be a vacation spot program, and with the assets we’re putting in, I’m excited for the long run,” Cottingham stated.
