{"id":19099,"date":"2006-05-22T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2006-05-22T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=19099"},"modified":"2015-03-27T11:55:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T15:55:33","slug":"wiegaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2006\/05\/22\/wiegaard\/","title":{"rendered":"Boe-Wiegaard wins NCAA Singles Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Bates College senior Will Boe-Wiegaard defeated Middlebury College senior Brian Waldron in straight sets on Monday morning, 6-4, 6-3, to capture the singles championship in the 2006 NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championships.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is the first national title for Boe-Wiegaard (Georgetown, Conn.), a four-time All-America who was national runner-up in 2005.<\/p>\n

Boe-Wiegaard becomes the first Bates man to win an NCAA championship since 2003. He is also Bates’ first NCAA champion in any sport outside of track and field.<\/p>\n

“It hasn’t really hit me yet, but I know this is a dream come true,” Boe-Wiegaard said on\u00a0his cellphone following his final collegiate victory. “I actually have mixed emotions, because I can’t believe it’s over.”<\/p>\n

Boe-Wiegaard ends his senior season with a 25-6 record in singles play. He was unseeded in the 32-player Singles Championship when it began, but en route to the championship he defeated the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 8 seeds — Matt Seeberger of UC-Santa Clara, Waldron and MIT senior Evan Tindell, respectively — all of whom had beaten Boe-Wiegaard in their previous meetings, as had Middlebury senior Nate Edmunds, whom Boe-Wiegaard ousted in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

To win the title, Boe-Wiegaard played five singles matches in a period of less than three days, along with two doubles matches with senior teammate Tristan Beach (Grand Rapids, Mich.). Boe-Wiegaard and Beach made it to the quarterfinals of the Doubles Championship.<\/p>\n

Boe-Wiegaard first defeated Yoji Masuoka of Emory University, who had helped win the team championship for Emory the day before, 6-3, 6-3. “I made an adjustment and started feeling really good,” said Boe-Wiegaard of the match.<\/p>\n

Next up on Saturday was Seeberger, the two-time defending national champion, who had beaten Boe-Wiegaard in the national final the year before. This time, Boe-Wiegaard dropped the first set before reclaiming his groove in a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n

“That whole day just flew by,” he said. “I was just really zoned in.”<\/p>\n

That feeling continued on Sunday, though Boe-Wiegaard admits he was nervous about facing MIT’s Tindell, who had beaten him 6-3, 6-2 during the regular season. “I had lost to him pretty convincingly, and I know he had a boatload of confidence about facing me,” he said. Boe-Wiegaard cruised in the first set, 6-1, but fell behind in the second set 3-0. He then broke serve twice, regaining confidence en route to losing the second set 6-4, which he carried into a 6-3 win in the third set.<\/p>\n

Boe-Wiegaard went on to play Middlebury’s Edmunds in the semifinals. The Middlebury senior had beaten Boe-Wiegaard in the ITA tournament semifinals in the fall. “He’s a really consistent player, so he’s very dangerous,” said Boe-Wiegaard. “He’s not going to make mistakes, so you can’t, either. But I felt so good, and I didn’t feel at any point that I would lose.” Boe-Wiegaard cruised into the finals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Edmunds.<\/p>\n

His Monday morning finals opponent, Waldron, is no fun to play against. “He can fire a 135-mph serve down your throat, or just crank forehands by you, left and right,” said Boe-Wiegaard. Plus, rising early in the morning for the biggest match of his life presented its own challenges. “Waking up got worse and worse every day. I was walking around without bending my knees this morning. But after that first game, you feel fine. The adrenaline just takes over.”<\/p>\n

Boe-Wiegaard returned to his groove against Waldron in his 6-4, 6-3 victory. He won one game point by diving for a volley that dropped just over the net, though he never saw the ball land. “I heard the umpire say ‘Game, Boe-Wiegaard’, and I just said to myself, ‘Sweet.’<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t imagine my college career ending so perfectly,” Boe-Wiegaard said. “I don’t even know how to feel, because it’s all new to me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bates College senior Will Boe-Wiegaard defeated Middlebury College senior Brian Waldron in straight sets on Monday morning, 6-4, 6-3, to capture the singles championship in the 2006 NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[1517],"class_list":["post-19099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","tag-bates-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90039,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19099\/revisions\/90039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}