BOSTON- Third-seeded Binghamton University upset top-seeded Stony Brook University to win its second-straight America East Men's Tennis Championship at the Connecticut Tennis Center in New Haven, Conn. The Bearcats receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tennis Championship, May 14-16. Day Three Results
Binghamton started the match off by winning the doubles point, but then trailed 3-2 before rallying to pull off the come-from-behind win to earn the title. The championship pairing was a rematch of last year's final in which the Bearcats also defeated the Seawolves by a slim 4-3 margin.
Singles competition was played evenly as both teams took three points. Dan Hanegby got the ball rolling for Binghamton at first singles with a win over Tal Meir (6-4, 7-6). Stony Brook then responded by reeling off victories at second (Michael Crooks over Richemn Mourad 7-6, 4-6, 6-2), third (Alamgir Wali over Brian O'Connor 6-1, 7-6) and fourth singles (Egil Aronsen over Steve Spencer 5-7, 6-2, 6-2). The Bearcats fought back to win the final two singles (Edwin Gerard over Jean-Francois Robitaille 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 and Juan Garcia over Philippe Amireault 6-2, 1-6, 6-2) to clinch the title.
The Bearcats started off the match by taking the doubles point with two-of-three wins. Binghamton's Hanegby and Spencer downed Meir and Wali (9-8) at No. 1 and O'Connor and Gerard topped Stony Brook's Crooks and James Carpenter (9-7) at No. 3 to secure the point for the defending league champ. SBU's Aronsen and Robitaille were able to win at second doubles over Mourad and Garcia (8-5).
Hanegby of Binghamton was named the Most Outstanding Performer. He was joined on the all-conference team by teammates Garcia, Gerard, O'Connor, and Spencer and Geoffrey Wagner (Boston U.), Jorge Acuna (Hartford), Patrick Flint (Hartford), Jeff Hurlbert (Hartford), Evan Sideman (Hartford), Dan Kirchner (Hartford), Josef Novotny (UMBC), James Tyler (UMBC), Goldy Sherrill (New Hampshire), Aronsen (Stony Brook), Crooks (Stony Brook), Meir (Stony Brook), Robitaille (Stony Brook), Wali (Stony Brook), Eric Conway (Vermont), Griffin Maloney (Vermont) and Matthew Spring (Vermont). Bearcat head coach Michael Starke also took home his second consecutive Coach of the Year honor.
The America East Tennis Championship utilizes a format of three doubles matches and six singles matches. Doubles matches are played first using eight-game pro sets with a 12-point tie-break at eight games all. The team winning two or more of the doubles matches receives one point in the team scoring. The doubles matches are followed by the singles matches using a best two-of-three sets format. Each singles match is worth one point. A minimum of four points is required to win the team match.