The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Still celebrating her recognition as the 2018 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Player of the Year, Danielle 'Danie' Thompson closed out her senior year at Morgan State by earning both the Most Valuable Player and the Co-Female Athlete of the Year.

The honours were bestowed upon Thompson at Morgan State's 32nd annual Athletic Banquet on Tuesday night. While she was thrilled to have been selected by the Lady Bears' athletic programme, Thompson said the double honour caught her by surprise.

"I'm very proud of myself," she told The Tribune. "It's my last year, so it means a whole lot that this is the way that I am ending it here. It gives me a lot of confidence and motivation of what is next for me. So I'm super excited to see where this takes me."

Coaxed on by her teammates, who predicted that she would receive the honours, Thompson said even if she was not selected, she could still walk away from Morgan State knowing that she did all she could to help the Lady Bears women's tennis team to succeed.

"I am the co-athlete of the year so it's just amazing to know that they have recognised me in this manner," she stated.

"So it's something that I will cherish along with being the MVP for women's tennis and of course being the MEAC Athlete of the Year."

Thompson, 23, helped the Lady Bears claim the MEAC Tournament title, which was Morgan State's second and the first since 1994. For her effort, she was named to the MEAC All-Tournament team and Tournament Most Outstanding Player.

She is currently on a 10-match winning streak in singles play to improve to 17-7 as the Lady Bears' No.1 player. Her 17 wins leads the Lady Bears and are the most wins in the MEAC in singles. Thompson has recorded a career of 55 singles victories, the most by a Lady Bear player in nearly 20 years. She has also recorded a 12-9 doubles record, including 11-4 pairing up with Peggy Rooke.

She is also a three-time MEAC Player of the Week, earning the selection awards on January 24, April 11 and April 18.

With one more order of business to deal with at Morgan State before she's finally done, Thompson said she would like nothing better than to take the Lady Bears through the NCAA Tournament that starts next week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Coming off their MEAC conference title last week, thanks to Thompson's clinching victory in the singles, Morgan State (12-12) will take on Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) champions and No.2 seed North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center on Friday.

Their match at 1pm will follow the first round meeting between Mississippi State and William & Mary at 10am. The two first-round winners will meet on Saturday at 3pm to determine who will advance to the NCAA Championships finals, hosted by Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"UNC is a pretty big school so I'm just really excited to go there and play with my teammates," Thompson said. "I have nothing to lose. The exposure and the experience will be really good. It's funny because one of my former teammates at the academy that I went to in Tampa (Florida) messaged me and told me that she's looking forward to seeing me. She plays on the team we will play. So I'm just super excited to play Cassandra Vazquez and to see how they play."

In leading the Lady Bears once again, Thompson said she's not concerned because she has done what she had to do and that was to get Morgan State into the NCAA Tournament.

"The pressure was on when we played Conference and now that we did what we had to do, this is just going to be a lot of fun as we look forward to the experience," she pointed out.

"We're just going to go out there and play tennis at a high level. We've had a couple of days off and we're back on the grind preparing to leave on Wednesday and so we will be practicing until then."

And if there is any more gratification for Thompson, it's the fact that she's done with her academics at Morgan State and is just waiting to graduate on May 19 with her degree in hospitality management.

The 5-foot, 2-inch daughter of Gail and Stephen Thompson said once she's done at Morgan State she will be looking forward to returning home to train with the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association's team selected for the Fed Cup.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what doors open for me and what's going to happen, so I'm happy for that," she stated. "I can't wait to come home and start training with the team again."

The Bahamas will play out of the Americas Zone II tie June 18-23 in Metepec, Mexico. The Bahamas will be matched against Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras and Trinidad & Tobago in Zone B.

In Zone A are Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.

The winners of each pool will go into a playoff to determine which nation from Metepec will advance to the Americas Zone Group I in 2019.