FREELAND, Mich. -- At the conclusion of the 2022 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) women's tennis regular season, head coaches from the MIAA's nine member institutions that sponsor women's tennis voted on All-MIAA awards.
Hope senior Sydney Jackson was named the MIAA Most Valuable Player for the second-straight season after leading the Flying Dutch to the conference championship with an unblemished record of 8-0. The Hope captain went undefeated at No. 1 singles and at No. 1 doubles with partner Sullivan Patel. Jackson became a three-time All-MIAA recipient this season.
Senior Emily McDonald of Alma received the Sue Little Award, which is given in memory of Sue Little, a 1954 graduate of Albion College and conference singles champion. The winner of this award is selected by the tennis players as best exemplifying courtesy and sportsmanship both on and off the courts.
Trine senior Ashley Spirrison was voted the 2022 Karen Caine Award recipient. This scholar-athlete honor is named after Karen Caine, former long-term women’s tennis coach at Adrian College. Spirrison played at No. 1 dingles and No. 1 doubles all four years and concluded her career with an 87.5% (63-9) winning percentage in singles and 55-16 (.775) in doubles, which are both the top in program history. She is a Biomedical Engineering major with a 3.903 GPA and will graduate from the honors college as Summa Cum Laude. Spirrison was selected to present research at the 2021 BMES conference in Orlando and was a STEM Symposium winner in the Fall of 2020. She coordinated the Polymers Research program at the University of Akron and the paper was published in a scientific journal. Spirrison was selected to participate in the project funded by the Indiana Space Grant Consortium studying NASA Astronaut Vascular health. She was awarded an Engineering Graduate Fellowship for graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, beginning in the Fall of 2022.
Jackson and Spirrison are both three-time All-MIAA honorees. Both Kalamazoo's Caroline Norton and Sophie Zhuang became two-time All-MIAA recipients this season.
Most Valuable Player
Sydney Jackson, Hope (2)
Sue Little Award
Emily McDonald, Alma
Karen Caine Award
Ashley Spirrison, Trine
2022 Women's Tennis All-MIAA First Team
2022 Women's Tennis All-MIAA Second Team
(#) Number of multi-time All-MIAA (First Team and Second Team)
