Next weekend, the men’s tennis team participates in its most important tournament of the fall season, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships. The Warhawks will travel to St. Peter, Minn. to compete from 9/30-10/2.
The regional is a qualifier that sends players to the national ITA Championships in October, where the 8 singles and doubles champions will compete. Last year the `Hawks dominated the ITA Regional Championship with four singles players making the round of sixteen, and had three of the four doubles teams in the semifinals.
Junior Andrew Bayliss and sophomore Ethan Niquet both won three straight matches in singles before being knocked out. Last year’s transfer from the UK, Jake Macey, also won four straight matches before being knocked out by the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed from Grinnell College.
Macey and senior Eric Scanlan won four doubles matches and earned a place in the finals. They would be joined by teammates Bayliss and senior Mitch Osborne, who arrived in the finals after beating fellow Warhawks sophomore Byron Balkin and junior Will Krieger. Macey and Scanlan took the all-Warhawk final and the doubles title in two sets.
After last season’s outstanding performance in the ITA Regional Championship and with the team returning most of its key players, expectations are high for similar results.
“The ITA’s are great experience for players,” coach Frank Barnes said. “We had some guys go to the national tournament in Alabama last year, and I think they will be driven to get back there.”
This year’s fall season for the `Hawks is a short one, as it only includes the Art Peterson Invite and the ITA Championship.
One of the benefits of playing in a tournament as large as the ITA Regional Championship is it gives new players, like freshman Cameron Laktash, some experience against a broad range of competition, and it gives teams a chance to solidify lineups for the upcoming spring season.
“As a coach, this lets me know who has been working hard all summer,” Barnes said. “I know where all of our starters from last year are, but this gives the guys at the top of the bench, and our new player Cameron, a chance to battle it out for a spot.”
