(Story courtesy of Trinity University)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The Trinity University Tigers men’s tennis team begins competition Saturday in the NCAA Division III Whitewater Regional, at Whitewater, Wis.
Trinity (16-9), which received a first-round bye, plays the winner of Carleton College and the Milwaukee School of Engineering at 9 a.m. Saturday in the second round, at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Carleton and MSOE open the regional at 9 a.m. Friday.
Host UW-Whitewater meets Wisconsin-Eau Claire at 1 p.m. Friday, for the right to take on Kenyon at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The winners of the second-round matches play in the regional final Sunday at noon. At stake is a berth in the NCAA Championship Tournament, to be held May 24-27 at Oberlin, Ohio. Forty-two teams are vying for the national crown. (Please see schedule below.)
Friday (first
round)
9 a.m. – Carleton vs. Milwaukee School of Engineering
1 p.m. – Wisconsin-Whitewater vs. Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Saturday (second
round)
9 a.m. – Trinity vs. Carleton/MSOE winner
2 p.m. Kenyon vs. UW-Whitewater/UW-Eau Claire winner
Sunday (regional
final/third round)
Noon – second-round winners
Trinity has won 12 straight matches, and is led by first-year head coach Russell McMindes – a former Tiger standout. He was voted the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year, leading the Tigers to a 15th SCAC Championship. Trinity beat DePauw 5-3 in last month’s tourney at North Little Rock, Ark., and gained the NCAA automatic bid.
The Tigers are playing in their 17th NCAA Tournament, and the first since 2008. Trinity advanced to the regional final at Fredericksburg, Va., and was edged 5-4 by the University of Mary Washington. Up to that point, the Tigers, with head coach Butch Newman, had played in 16 straight NCAA Tournaments. Coach Newman, now Trinity’s director of tennis, guided the Tiger men and women to the national championship in 2000.
Singles and doubles bids will be announced Wednesday by the NCAA. The men’s individual tournament is slated for May 28-30 at Oberlin.
Both the Trinity men and women are expected to receive individual bids. The Tiger women did not make the NCAA Team Tournament.
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