The UW-Whitewater men’s and women’s teams both received word that they will be back to the NCAA tournament this coming weekend.  The women put a stamp on their invitation this past weekend when they earned an automatic bid by winning the WIAC final four AQ tournament by beating UW-Oshkosh 6-0 and UW-La Crosse 7-2.  The men received their invitation by being ranked in the top 8 in the nation that were a part of “Pool B” selection process.  The men are currently ranked #9 in the Central region rankings.

 

The men will be making their 3^rd consecutive NCAA birth and will head to St Peter, MN.  In the first round they will be taking on conference rival UW-Eau Claire on Friday.  If they win they will be taking on host Gustavus in the second round with a chance to advance to the Regional final round on Sunday with a win.  The winner of the Sunday match will advance to the national quarterfinals-finals in Claremont, CA.  For the men’s bracket, go to: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ncaa/sports/m-tennis/auto_pdf/MTen-D3-2009Bracket.pdf

The women will be making their 2^nd consecutive NCAA berth after a terrific season winning the WIAC conference and being currently ranked #17 in the nation.  The women will be playing in St Peter, MN as well.  They are the #2 seed in this region, so they will receive a first round bye on Thursday.  On Friday they will play in the regional semis against the winner of Wheaton and Edgewood.  If they win on Friday they will be playing the Regional final round on Saturday possibly against the top seeded host Gustavus.  The winner of the Saturday match will advance to the national quarterfinals-finals in Lawrenceville, GA on May 19-21. For the women’s bracket, go to: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ncaa/sports/w-tennis/auto_pdf/WTen-D3-2009Bracket.pdf   Note due to Wheaton being in this pod, everything will be moved up a day (compared to what the bracket says), as Wheaton is not able to play on Sundays due to religious reasons. 

 

Both teams will be hitting the road together on Thursday afternoon.  I will forward the actual match times as soon as I learn them.

 

The selections to the NCAA individual tournament (May 22-24) will be announced on Wednesday.  Freshman All-American Kalla Schaefer is being considered for selection, so we’ll let you know when we hear on that front.

 

I also wanted to give a brief wrap up of this weekend’s women’s WIAC AQ tournament that sent the Lady Warhawks to the big dance.  For photos go to: http://www.uwwsports.com/sports/wten/2009/WIACFinalFourTournament/index.html

 

The WIAC AQ tournament is the spring tournament that sends the top WIAC team to the NCAA to represent the conference.  The top four finishers from the fall conference tournament go head to head in a dual match format to see which team advances.  Since the Warhawks won the fall tournament, they got to host the tournament and received the #1 seed.  The scores for each round is below. 

 

With the #1 seed they took on #4 seeded UW-Oshkosh in the first round.  This semi final round was only to be played to decision.  Once the match is decided in the first round, the rest of the individual matches get stopped.  In doubles the Hawks cruised quickly only losing 7 total games in the three matches.  It was more of the same in singles as Schaefer, Daciolas, and Woyahn each won their matches.  Stensvaag, Siemon, and Smith were also all on the verge of winning when the match was stopped. 

 

UW-La Crosse beat UW-Eau Claire 5-3 in the other semi-final, so the championship match pitted #1 UWW vs #2 UWL.  After doubles the Warhawks led 2-1 after winning at #1 and #2, but losing at #3.  Schaefer, Smith, Siemon, Daciolas, and Amundson all won in straight sets in singles to give the Warhawks the win 7-2.
 

Congrats to all of the players for their fine efforts, let’s now see how far we can go!

 

GO WARHAWKS!!