Michaela Kissell and Kellie Schmitt have been linked as two of the most promising young tennis players in the district ever since they first picked up a racket as children.

Both have blossomed into top-notch college players, so it came as no surprise they met in the finals of the National Collegiate Clay Court Championships at the Mt. Lebanon Tennis Center yesterday.

Kissell, a standout at Greater Latrobe High School who will be a sophomore this fall at the University of Miami, was seeded No. 1. Schmitt, a rising senior at Marshall who is a native of Bethel Park and lives in Cecil, was No. 2.

"I didn't look at myself as the favorite," Kissell said after she weathered a rocky start to defeat Schmitt, 4-6, 6-1, 10-8 in the championship match in her first appearance in the tournament. "I hadn't played her in two years and I haven't played on clay in four years."

Kissell seemed right at home once she pulled her game together after Schmitt raced to a 5-1 lead in the first set.

"I give her all the credit for that. She came out firing and hit all the lines," Kissell said. "I started taking away her angles by hitting hard down the middle. I didn't get worried [down 5-1]. I told myself the worst that can happen is I lose a tennis match. That's not so terrible."

Kissell rallied to make it 5-4 before Schmitt served out the first set.

"I had a bit of momentum going into the set," said Kissell, who won the first four games en route to a 6-1 set that set the stage for a 10-point tiebreaker.

"It's hard in the tiebreaker not to be a little safer, but that's what I told myself not to do," said Kissell, who spent much of the match chasing down Schmitt's crosscourt shots. "I still love the battle. I love to keep fighting for every point."

Growing up together in Western Pennsylvania, Kissell and Schmitt ran into each other a couple times in age-group tournaments. They also met in the second round of the WPIAL Class AA championships when Kissell was a freshman.

"I won that match," Kissell said. "That was the first time I realized maybe I could play a bit with her."

Kissell was undefeated in matches in high school and won WPIAL and PIAA singles championships as a freshman, sophomore and junior before she had ACL surgery on her right knee and didn't participate as a senior.

Asked what winning a national collegiate tournament means to her, Kissell said, "It tells me I'm on the right track, that I'm doing the right things in tennis."

Collegiate men's championship

Third seed Patrick Daciek, who lives in Severna Park., Md., and will be a freshman at Virginia Tech, won the singles title Friday with a 6-3, 6-2 victory against Jeremy McClelland, a Duquesne University junior-to-be from Wheeling, W.Va.

$10,000 Futures of Pittsburgh

Seventh seed Somdev Dev Varman, a native of India and recent graduate of the University of Virginia, defeated No. 1 Luis-Manuel Flores of Mexico in the semifinals yesterday. Dev Varman, a two-time NCAA Division I singles champion who won a Futures event last week in Rochester, N.Y., was steady.

Dev Varman will meet unseeded Travis Hegelson in the final at 11 a.m. today. Hegelson, a recent graduate of the University of Georgia and the tournament runner-up last year, advanced with a 7-1, 7-6 (7-5) victory against unseeded Jean-Yves Aubune yesterday.