Monday, 04/18/2011

Rock Hill, S.C.----Regular season champion Wingate University is the top seed for the 2011 Food Lion South Atlantic Conference men’s tennis tournament, the conference office announced. The 2011 event will be held at the Rock Hill Tennis Center. The number 39 team in the Campbell/ITA NCAA Division II national rankings, Wingate completed the 2011 season 16-3 overall and 9-0 in the SAC.

The Bulldogs have won 12 matches in a row entering the league’s post-season event. Wingate wrapped up a perfect conference slate with a 5-4 victory over Brevard College on Friday. Winners of two conference regular season titles in the last three years, Wingate and head coach Michael Cabana have been moving up the charts. In Cabana’s five seasons at the Bulldog helm, his teams have finished seventh, fourth, first, second and first in the regular season standings.
        
Anderson University, Brevard College, and Lincoln Memorial University finished in a three-way tie for second place with 7-2 conference records. Each of the three teams went 1-1 against the other two tied teams. Also, the match scores were identical in each of the matches, with the winning team prevailing by a 5-4 score. Each of the three teams lost to Wingate and defeated the other five conference opponents.
         
In order to break the deadlock, the conference office had to go to the final step in its tie-breaking procedure, a coin toss by the commissioner. SAC Commissioner Patrick Britz conducted the coin toss process this weekend, with the head coaches from Anderson, Brevard and Lincoln Memorial. Anderson won the process and earned the second seed. As a result, Anderson will join Wingate with a bye to Thursday’s semi-finals.
           
Brevard (13-7 overall) earned the third seed by virtue of its 5-4 victory over Lincoln Memorial on April 8. the Tornados will face sixth-seed Newberry College (6-13 overall) in one quarterfinal match on Wednesday at 9 a.m. Defending tournament champion Lincoln Memorial (11-5 overall) will face fifth-seed Mars Hill College (7-8 overall) in the other quarterfinal match on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
        
The winner of the Brevard/Newberry match will face Anderson (11-8 overall) in one semi-final match on Thursday at 9 a.m. The winner of the Lincoln Memorial/Mars Hill match will face Wingate in the other semi-final match on Thursday at 9 a.m.
        
Following the women’s tournament semi-finals on Thursday, coaches and student-athletes from South Atlantic Conference men’s and women’s tennis teams will conduct a youth tennis clinic at the Rock Hill Tennis Center from 5 p.m. until 6 p.m.
        
The semi-final winners will meet for the tournament championship on Friday at 9 a.m. For more information on the Rock Hill Tennis Center, click here. Follow the links for more information on visiting Rock Hill and York County.
         
The tournament winner will receive an automatic bid into the NCAA Division II men’s tennis tournament. Food Lion is the title sponsor for all South Atlantic Conference championships.