TYLER, Texas (October 25, 2026) — Andrea De Bernardo turned Lubbock Christian University's final fall tournament into a historic one.
 
The senior became the first Lady Chaparral to reach the singles championship match of the ITA Division II South Central Regional, and in doing so secured an automatic berth to the inaugural ITA Division II Singles & Doubles Championships to headline four days of competition for LCU's men's and women's tennis programs at UT Tyler's Summers Tennis Center.
 
De Bernardo, the No. 6 seed in the women's draw, won five consecutive matches to reach Sunday's championship before No. 10 seed Victoria Vieten of Midwestern State ended the run with a 6-0, 7-5 victory. The runner-up finish was enough to punch De Bernardo's ticket to the new Division II individual national championship, as both singles finalists and doubles finalists from each Division II regional receive automatic berths.
 
The accomplishment gives De Bernardo another first for the Lady Chaparrals and makes her LCU's only automatic qualifier from the South Central Regional. Additional at-large selections for the national championship will be announced later.
 
Her route to the final included two victories over seeded opposition and four wins in straight sets. De Bernardo opened the 64-player singles draw with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over UT Dallas' Grecia Idrogo and followed by dispatching Cameron's Alexa Lugo Ruiz 6-2, 6-0. The Caracas, Venezuela, native faced her first three-set test in the round of 16, responding after dropping the second set to St. Mary's Isabella Olsson with a dominant deciding set for a 6-2, 4-6, 6-0 victory.
 
The road only became more difficult from there.
 
De Bernardo knocked out No. 2 seed Vasilis Kupriianova of Angelo State 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) in the quarterfinals, then met No. 4 Emilia Gyorgy of Midwestern State in the semifinals. De Bernardo again delivered in straight sets, winning 6-4, 6-3 to earn her place in the regional championship match and simultaneously clinch her national berth. Vieten finally halted the five-match winning streak in Sunday's final.
 
De Bernardo was not alone in producing a deep women's singles run for LCU. No. 12 seed Kristel Jativa reached the quarterfinals after collecting three consecutive victories. The sophomore opened with a 6-0, 6-1 win over UT Permian Basin's Sophia Crosby and followed with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over St. Mary's Breeze Simon. Jativa then survived one of LCU's longest battles of the tournament, rallying past UT Tyler's Maria Antonio Ortega 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the round of 16. No. 4 seed Gyorgy ended Jativa's run with a 7-5, 6-1 quarterfinal victory.
 
Aitanna Moreno Villa provided an early upset of her own. The sophomore knocked off No. 11 Danai Amangazhiyeva of Angelo State 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) in the opening round before later moving into the consolation draw. Moreno Villa rallied past Midwestern State's Aroa Ajenjo Gomez 3-6, 7-5, 10-8 and blanked Idrogo in the second set of a 7-6 (7-0), 6-0 victory to advance to the consolation quarterfinals. UT Dallas' Presley Churchman stopped the run there, 6-2, 6-2.
 
Freshman Lili Kovacs-Sebestyen put together LCU's longest run through either consolation draw, winning four consecutive matches to reach the women's consolation championship.
After Cameron's Alexa Garcia won their opening main-draw match, Kovacs-Sebestyen rebounded by outlasting Angelo State's Sasa Felixova 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 10-4. She followed with another three-set victory over UT Tyler's Sabrina Pugh, 6-3, 4-6, 10-4, and rallied from a set down again to defeat UT Dallas' Namrata Makhija 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 in the quarterfinals. Kovacs-Sebestyen then defeated Churchman 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals before UT Dallas' Gianna Graci survived the consolation championship 6-2, 4-6, 10-7. Three of Kovacs-Sebestyen's four victories during the run required a deciding match tiebreak.
 
Naghely Garcia, Gabriela Franco and Alexa Irzabal also represented the Lady Chaparrals in singles. Garcia pushed Midwestern State's Ekin Ozmen to an 11-9 deciding tiebreak in consolation play before falling 4-6, 6-1, 11-9. Fifth-seeded Selina Wu of St. Mary's defeated Franco in the main draw, while No. 3 Margaux Rene of Angelo State topped Irzabal.
 
LCU also threatened to produce a national qualifier in women's doubles. Garcia and Kovacs-Sebestyen advanced to the semifinals with three consecutive victories, beginning with a 9-7 decision over UT Permian Basin's Fanny Bergstrom and Alice Bolton. They then delivered one of LCU's biggest doubles results of the tournament, knocking off fourth-seeded Emilia Gyorgy and Alessia Dolce of Midwestern State 8-2 in the round of 16. An 8-3 quarterfinal win over UT Tyler's Claudia Di Leonardo and Luisa Moraes moved the Lady Chaparrals within one victory of the final and an automatic national berth.
 
St. Mary's No. 8-seeded combination of Madalyn Smelley and Wu denied them that berth in a dramatic semifinal. Garcia and Kovacs-Sebestyen dominated the opening set 6-1 before Smelley and Wu responded 6-4 and captured the deciding match tiebreak 10-5.

Second-seeded De Bernardo and Jativa reached the women's doubles quarterfinals after defeating UT Tyler's Paula Castellanos and Carla Rodier 8-3. Midwestern State's seventh-seeded Vieten and Cami Garcia Morales eliminated the LCU pairing 8-4. Franco and Moreno Villa also competed in the main doubles draw.
 
The Chaparrals had their own deep runs in the men's bracket, led by second-seeded Pablo Segura's march to the singles semifinals.Segura received an opening-round bye before beginning his tournament with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Midwestern State's Cesar Loeches Llamas in the round of 32. He followed with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 10 Joao D'Amorim of UT Permian Basin and defeated UT Tyler's Manuel Lassacher 6-1, 6-4 in the quarterfinals. That placed Segura one victory away from joining De Bernardo as an automatic qualifier, but third-seeded Malo Poulesquen of UT Tyler prevailed 6-1, 6-4 in the semifinals. Segura finished his singles run with three straight victories and did not surrender a set before the semifinal.
 
LCU placed three men among the final eight singles players, with Marco Seccia and Amir Gaisin joining Segura in the quarterfinals. Fifth-seeded Seccia opened with a tight 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory over St. Mary's Florian Smalto before beating Cameron's Pol Shifer 6-3, 6-4. Seccia then turned in one of the most dominant LCU performances of the tournament with a 6-2, 6-0 round-of-16 victory over UT Permian Basin's Jack Hansen Ratter. Fourth-seeded Bruno Sanchez of Midwestern State ended Seccia's run in the quarterfinals, taking a close 6-3, 7-6 (10-8) decision.
 
Gaisin entered as the No. 15 seed and also won three matches. The freshman defeated UT Permian Basin's Philipp Gaurieder 6-3, 6-2 before surviving Midwestern State's Marc Sampol Valverde 6-2, 5-7, 10-4. Gaisin then produced an upset in the round of 16, taking down eighth-seeded Abubakari Yakubu Lea of Cameron 6-4, 6-4. Top-seeded Samuel Antwi of UT Tyler ended Gaisin's run 6-2, 6-0 in the quarterfinals.
 
André Rossi Principe nearly joined the Chaparrals advancing out of the opening round, taking 12th-seeded Jose Portillo of Midwestern State to a deciding tiebreak before Portillo escaped 6-2, 3-6, 10-6. Hayden Loffler fell to UT Permian Basin's Kabir Chothani 6-3, 6-4, while No. 10 D'Amorim defeated Ayden Fraire 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).
 
LCU also had two seeded men's doubles teams reach the quarterfinals. No. 5 Segura and Gaisin opened with an 8-2 victory over UT Dallas' Mason Fair and Gautam Panguluri and followed by defeating Midwestern State's Marc Sampol Valverde and Mart Salvador Pages 8-3. Third-seeded Filip Vacula and Sanchez of Midwestern State stopped the LCU pairing 8-5 in the quarterfinals.
 
Second-seeded Seccia and Rossi Principe received an opening bye and defeated St. Mary's Lincoln Baldonado and Smalto 8-3 in the round of 16. Fifth-seeded D'Amorim and Nehal Naidoo of UT Permian Basin advanced past the Chaparrals 8-1 in the quarterfinals.

Loffler and Fraire responded to an opening main-draw defeat by making a run all the way to the consolation doubles championship. They defeated Cameron's Andres Serrano and Kerem Tufekci 8-4, survived UT Permian Basin's Christian Lopez and Enrique Silveira 8-7 (9-7) and won another tiebreak against Western New Mexico's Djamel Dine Bey and Benjamin Vriends, 8-7 (7-4), in the semifinals. Cameron's Zoheir Fardoun and Tom Debonne ended their run with an 8-3 victory in the consolation final.
 
While Sunday closed LCU's fall schedule as a team, De Bernardo's season will continue onto a national stage.
 
The 2026 season marks the inaugural year of the ITA Division II Singles & Doubles Championships, a new standalone national event created specifically for Division II after the division moved away from NCAA-sponsored individual championships more than three decades ago. Beginning with the 1995 championships, NCAA Division II tennis adopted a team-only championship format after previously crowning team, singles and doubles champions.
 
The new ITA championship also replaces Division II participation in the ITA Cup. Division III, NAIA and junior college competitors continue to use the ITA Cup as their fall individual national championship, while Division II now has its own dedicated national event. The ITA notes that Division II remains the only NCAA tennis division without an NCAA-sponsored singles and doubles championship.
 
Regional champions and finalists in singles and doubles receive automatic berths into the new championship, meaning De Bernardo secured her place the moment she won Saturday's semifinal. The ITA will fill the remainder of the national fields through at-large selections determined through its Division II operating committees.
 
De Bernardo will now represent LCU at the inaugural ITA Division II Singles & Doubles Championships, scheduled for Nov. 4-8 at the Tuscaloosa Tennis Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The ITA has secured the Tuscaloosa site for the championship through at least 2028, with every qualifier guaranteed a minimum of three matches.
 
Her qualification gives LCU a representative in the first standalone Division II individual national championship of the modern team-only era and follows a South Central Regional performance in which she defeated five consecutive opponents, eliminated two of the tournament's top four seeds and became the first Lady Chaparral to play for a regional singles title.