After dominating the America East all season long and clinching the season’s final 18 matches, the Binghamton University men’s tennis team heads into the America East championship as heavy favorites to win its conference for a third straight year. The top-seeded Bearcats are set to play the winner of the No. 4 Boston University and No. 5 Hartford matchup on Saturday.
Having won five of the last seven AE tourneys, the Bearcats look to improve their impressive streak this weekend. Binghamton has put together a record-setting 23-win season and are currently ranked No. 48 in the country, while no other schools in the America East are ranked. Binghamton also captured the highest national ranking in program history, climbing as high as 43rd in the country.
Binghamton’s hopes lie heavily on the play of junior Sven Vloedgraven, sophomore Gilbert Wong, senior Moshe Levy and junior Arnav Jain — all of whom have been outstanding all season long.
Vloedgraven is the top rated player in the entire Northeast region and finished with a 36-8 record, including 21-3 in duals. Vloedgraven’s doubles partner, Gilbert Wong, also had a successful year, posting a 33-7 overall record and a 21-1 record in duals. Wong has experience standing out at the America East tournament, and was huge for the Bearcats last year, winning the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award. Together, Wong and Vloedgraven have played to a 19-4 record in doubles, and are the sixth-ranked team in the region.
Like Wong, Arnav Jain has experience being cool in the clutch for the Bearcats in the tournament, and he has his own MOP award. His play down the stretch in 2008 was a huge reason why the Bearcats were able to defeat UMBC.
While the Bearcats have been stellar, the other AE teams are looking to put a stop to the defending champions. The second-seeded Stony Brook Seawolves have given the Bearcats some trouble throughout the years, but if last weekend’s 7-0 Bearcat win was any indication, BU has the upper hand. The Seawolves, last season’s runner-ups, finished this year’s regular season 15-6 overall. Stony Brook’s top players are junior Ivan Rummel and senior Halvar Dil, who posted records of 13-7 and 12-2, respectively.
Meanwhile UMBC looks to improve on last year’s third-place finish. With a team record of 16-5 for the season, the Retrievers lineup includes freshman Adam Duprat, who ended the regular season leading the team with a record of 17-2.
Finally, fourth-seeded Boston University comes into the tournament with a 5-12 record, most recently beating Hartford 4-3. Rookie Josh Friedman is the only player on the Terriers team posting a winning singles record. The Bearcats defeated Boston earlier this month, 7-0.
If the Bearcats win their semifinal match, they will take on the winner of the Stony Brook and UMBC matchup. The title match is set to take place 11 a.m. Sunday. All of this weekend’s matches will be played at Yale University.
“I’m pleased with the way the guys have competed and continued to improve throughout the year,” Adam Cohen, the Bearcats head coach, said. “To go 23-1 is a pretty good season and we just hope we can keep it up for another weekend and get back into the NCAA tournament.”