Stevens to Face Baruch in NCAA Men's Tennis Tournament First Round
Mark Becker
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (May 6, 2013) – The Stevens Institute of Technology men’s tennis team will face Baruch College in the First Round of the 44-team 2013 Division III Tennis Championship.
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Stevens will play its first match at Amherst College on Friday; the match start time will be posted as soon as it has been determined.
The Ducks have been slotted into the Amherst sub-regional bracket that includes top-seed No. 3 Amherst (25-7), The College of New Jersey (11-1), Babson College (8-5), Baruch (12-4) and No. 22 University of Mary Washington (14-10). Should the Ducks advance, they will face Mary Washington, which received a bye, in the Second Round. The team that advances through the first three rounds in each of the eight sub-regionals will travel to Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Mich. for the Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Championship matches, to take place Monday, May 20-Wednesday, May 22.
Stevens finished the regular season with a 13-7 overall record, with all seven losses coming to national top-27 teams against which the Ducks earned at least two points in every match. The Ducks picked up the program’s first-ever win over a ranked opponent in No. 30 TCNJ and achieved a program-record No. 8 ranking the Northeast region of the
Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division III Men’s Rankings. Freshman
Matthew Heinrich (Hendersonville, Tenn.) and senior
Chris Rosensteel (East Windsor, N.J.) were ranked as the No. 4 doubles pairing the region while coming in at No. 13 and No. 14, respectively, in the singles rankings this past week.
Stevens swept through the Empire 8 Athletic Conference, capping a third straight season with an undefeated mark in conference play (7-0) before defeating #4 seed St. John Fisher College,
5-0, and #2 seed Ithaca College,
5-2. The Ducks won an unprecedented fourth straight Empire 8 Championship and eighth conference title over the past nine years dating back to their four-year run in the Skyline Conference from 2004-07). Through the Championship, Stevens earned the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for their sixth appearance in the past seven years, over which the Ducks have advanced to the Second Round in each of the last three seasons and four of the last five.
In their last NCAA appearance in 2012, the Ducks topped Wilkes University, 5-1, in the First Round for the program’s third-ever NCAA win before falling 5-1 to No. 29 MIT, with Stevens winning at second doubles and forcing a pair of three-set singles matches. The Ducks also advanced to the Second Round in 2011, winning 5-2 over Drew University but falling 5-1 at defending national champion Middlebury College, while in 2010 Stevens received a bye in the First Round before falling 5-3 at No. 24 MIT, in which the Ducks were swept at doubles, including a tight 8-6 loss at threes, but mounted a furious rally behind straight-set victories at first, second and third singles and a three-set thriller at fifth singles that fell just short.
The Ducks could also send players to the individual championship the following week. The top four doubles teams and top eight singles players in each of the four regions receive invitations, which will be announced Wednesday, May 8.