With the regular season in the rearview mirror, the America East Men’s Tennis Championships are set to take place in New Haven, Conn. starting today.
The Binghamton University men’s tennis team finished its season on a six-game winning streak and snagged the top seed. Last season, the Bearcats defeated the University of Maryland, Baltimore County to earn the AE title. UMBC is the No. 2 seed this year.
The Boston University Terriers, Stony Brook Seawolves and Hartford Hawks round out the rankings as the No. 3, 4 and 5 seeds, respectively.
The Bearcats will be looking to stretch their impressive run of consecutive America East Championships to four. In the last nine years, Binghamton has won seven titles.
Despite a less-than-impressive 10-13 record on the year, the Bearcats did finish 3-0 against America East foes this spring, dropping only one set in the three matches. Binghamton has endured both an 0-4 start and a nine-game losing streak this season. But after finishing the regular season in style, including wins in eight of their last nine matches, the Bearcats looked poised to make another serious run in the postseason.
Binghamton is led by senior Sven Vloedgraven, who is currently ranked No. 81 in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The Netherlands native is a two-time America East Player of the Year and went 30-7 in singles play this season. Meanwhile, senior Arnav Jain is Binghamton’s No. 2 man. Jain earned his 100th career singles victory in his last match of the regular season, giving him a career record of 100-27, including a 25-9 mark this season. He also was selected as America East Player of the Week on April 19.
The No. 2 seed UMBC Retrievers, last year’s runner-up, are led by senior Mwali Phiri and junior Rasid Winklaar. The duo combined for 25 singles victories, where Phiri operates from the No. 6 slot while Winklaar plays out of the No. 2 slot. UMBC finished with a 13-5 record on the season.
Boston University, which posted a .500 record at 10-10, is the third seed and has two America East Player of the Week honorees this season: junior Michael Kopelman and sophomore Josh Friedman. The Terriers’ 7-0 shutout of Hartford in their last match of the season is sure to give Boston a boost as it heads into the tournament.
Stony Brook finished the season with an 8-10 record and took the No. 4 seed. The Seawolves are led by freshman Nikita Fomin, who plays from the top singles spot. Hailing from Moscow, Russia, Fomin is 12-5 this season, including a 10-5 mark from the No. 1 position.
Rounding out the field is University of Hartford, which sits at the No. 5 seed. The 6-13 Hawks have a very young and untested group which includes seven underclassmen, and will depend on junior Aneil Bhalla for some veteran leadership. Despite a 3-1 start to the 2010-11 season, Hartford stumbled to the finish, going just 3-12 in its last 15 matches.
Action is set to begin at 3 p.m. today with No. 4 Stony Brook battling No. 5 Hartford in the first-round matchup, the winner of which is scheduled to take on No. 1 seed Binghamton at 10 a.m. tomorrow.