INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. –
Fresh
off their conference championship wins this weekend, the Binghamton men’s and
Stony Brook women’s tennis teams learned their NCAA fates today. The Bearcats
will head to Oxford, Miss. for a May 12 first round match against 13th-ranked
Ole Miss while the Seawolves ship out west to Palo Alto, Calif. to take on the
fourth-ranked Stanford Cardinal on May 11. The official brackets were unveiled
earlier this evening.
Binghamton
clinched its fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance and eighth in the last
10 years by virtue of its 4-1 win over UMBC in the conference title match at
the USTA National Tennis Center over the weekend. Led by the Most Outstanding Player
at the conference championship Alex Haggai, the Bearcats bring an eight-match
win streak down to Mississippi.
Haggai
dominated over the weekend in Flushing, cruising through both of his singles
match in straight sets at No. 1. His two doubles wins at the conference
championships gave him 73 for his career which is the most all-time at
Binghamton.
The
Bearcats faced Ole Miss back in the 2004 NCAA Tourney and the Rebels won that
contest 4-0. 2012’s winner will face the winner of the Michigan vs. Middle Tennessee
matchup.
Stony
Brook won its first-ever women’s tennis conference title and had to win three
matches in three days to do so. After a first round victory over Albany the Seawolves
knocked off 18-time defending conference champion Boston University, 4-3 in the semis and then went on to defeat UMBC,
4-2 to earn the league’s automatic berth.
The
tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Polina Movchan won the clinching matches
for the Seawolves against the Terriers and Retrievers. Only a freshman, Movchan
went 3-0 at No. 2 singles improving her 2012 dual match record to 18-2 at that
spot.
Stanford,
the 2010 National Champion and 2011 National Runner-up, will be a tough test as
the Cardinal posted an 18-1 record this spring.
The
winner of this matchup will advance to take on the winner of the Yale vs. St. Mary’s
(Calif.) match.