Team Championship and Third-Place Matches
May 15, 2008

Championship Match Statistics:
Washington-St. Louis 5, Emory 3
Third-Place Match Statistics:
Claremont-M-S 5, Middlebury 4

LEWISTON, Maine -- Washington University in St. Louis claimed its first NCAA Division III Men's Tennis team championship on Thursday at Bates College, defeating conference rival Emory University 5-3 in a match that came down to a series of tooth-and-nail singles matches.

Washington University in St. Louis claimed its first NCAA men's tennis team championship with a 5-3 win over Emory University at Bates College.

The Bears, who had split its two regular-season matches against their UAA conference rival Eagles, raised their record to 20-4, while the Eagles finished 19-7.

Washington took a 2-1 lead after doubles, with Charlie Cutler and Chris Hoeland defeating Emory's Michael Goodwin and David Caplan 8-4 at No. 1 and John Watts and Nirmal Choradia prevailing 8-5 at No. 2 doubles over Emory's Mark Boren and Hardy Ehlers.

Washington's Isaac Stein made it 3-1 in favor of the Bears when he defeated Colin Egan at No. 6 singles, Stein's 13th straight singles victory. But Emory came back to tie the match, as Oliver Lopp defeated Max Woods at No. 4 singles, 6-3, 6-4, followed soon after by Goodwin's 6-4, 6-3 victory over John Watts at No. 1 singles.

Washington's Chris Hoeland outlasted Emory's Hardy Ehlers in three sets, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, at No. 5 singles, giving the Bears the lead back at 4-3 and focusing all attention on Courts 2 and 3. Emory's Mark Boren led 3-2 in the third set at No. 2 singles at that point, and Washington's Danny Levy had a 5-4 third-set edge at No. 3.

Caplan then tied the set at 5-5, but Caplan got ahead again 6-5. On triple match point, Levy ended a brief rally with a drop shot that bounced twice to Caplan's right, triggering a riotous celebration for the Bears on Court 3. Boren and Cutler's match next door at No. 2 went unfinished, with Emory's Boren leading 4-3.

Third-Place Match

In the third-place team match on Thursday morning, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps prevailed over Middlebury in an equally tight contest, 5-4.

The Stags (27-8) won the first and third doubles matches for an early 2-0 lead, but the Panthers' (18-7) Chris Mason and Andrew Lee prevailed over Ben Hough and Eric MacColl at No. 2 doubles to keep Middlebury within a point heading into singles play.

Lawrence Wang of CMS made it 3-1 in the Stags' favor by putting away Lee at No. 1 singles, 6-3, 6-1. But the remaining five singles matches proved to be all-out battles.

Filip Marinkovic of Middlebury closed the gap to 3-2 with a 6-4, 7-5 win over MacColl at No. 2. Then Drew Sabater of CMS made it 4-2 as he outlasted Andy Peters of Middlebury at No. 4, 6-2, 6-4.

While No. 3 singles was still in its first set and No. 5 singles was in its second set, Middlebury's Peter Odell managed to defeat Hough at No. 6 singles in three sets, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2.

Rich Bonfiglio then tied the match at 4-4 when he defeated the Stags' Russell Brockett at No. 5 in a second-set tiebreaker, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Finally the longest singles match of the three-day tournament decided third place, when the Stags' Mike Starr defeated Middlebury's Andrew Thomson after a marathon first set, 7-6 (10), 6-2.

The championships continue tomorrow at Bates as the battle for singles and doubles titles begins. Thirty-two singles players from around the country will vie for the NCAA Division III men's singles crown, while 16 doubles teams (including Ben Stein and Amrit Rupasinghe of host Bates) will contend for the doubles championship.

The singles Round of 32 starts at 9 a.m. Friday at Wallach Tennis Center, followed by the Round of 16 at 1 p.m. The doubles Round of 16 concludes the day, with a 4 p.m. start.