Bobcats shine at ITA men's tennis championships
September 30, 2007

Amrit Rupasinghe '10 (left) and Ben Stein '09 display their hardware for reaching the doubles finals. (Williams College Sports Information photo)
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Bates College junior Ben Stein was a semifinalist in singles and a finalist in doubles with sophomore teammate Amrit Rupasinghe to highlight the Bobcats men's tennis team's weekend at the ITA Division III Men's Regional Championships, hosted by Williams College.

Seeded fourth in the 56-player field, Stein (Pelham, N.Y.) reached the semifinals by beating Steven Nieman of Brandeis 6-4, 6-4, Mike Mintz of Amherst, 6-2, 6-0 in a round of 16 match, and beating the fifth-seeded Andrew Thomson of Middlebury, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 in the quarterfinals. Trinity's Spencer Feldman ended Stein's run in a semifinal battle, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Meanwhile, Stein and Rupasinghe (Colombo, Sri Lanka) advanced four rounds in the doubles bracket to meet Middlebury's Marinkovic/Thomson duo in the championship round, where they dropped a narrow 8-6 decision. The unseeded Bobcat pair defeated, in order, Neely/Fried of Bowdoin (8-5), Furnaga/Devlin of Williams (9-7), Wan/Schwartz of Amherst (by withdrawal) and Gates/Sullivan of Bowdoin (8-6) in the semifinals.

On the other side of the doubles bracket, Bates sophomores Maxwell Berger (Concord, N.H.) and Ryan Mannelly (New Canaan, Conn.) teamed up to defeat Braude/Whitter of UMass-Boston 8-3 before bowing out to top-seeded Lerner/Avrahami of Amherst 8-4.

Bates sophomore Michael Reiss (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) advanced two rounds in the singles bracket, downing Eliot Jia of Middlebury (7-5, 6-2) and Nick Lebedoff of Williams (2-1 ret.) before Feldman ended his run as well.

Rupasinghe and Berger also won their opening-round singles matches.

Bates' men's and women's tennis teams will play dual matches at Wesleyan University on Oct. 7.

ITA Singles Bracket

ITA Doubles Bracket