MIT Men’s Tennis takes the victory
Engineers finish NEWMAC tournament with record of 13-4
The MIT Men’s Tennis team played in the NEWMAC tournament last weekend, hosting Wheaton, Coast Guard, and Babson. The top-seeded Engineers swept both their semifinal and final matches en route to their 13th straight conference title.
In its semifinal against Babson Saturday, MIT secured a quick victory, getting six wins in the best-of-nine matchup in just 73 minutes. MIT opened with three doubles wins, with the teams of Ken Van Tilburg ’11 and Matthew T. Skalak ’13, Curtis L. Wu ’14 and Larry Pang ’13, and Andrew C. Cooper ’13 and Edwin M. Zhang ’14 winning 8-3, 8-2, and 8-4, respectively.
Cooper, Pang, and Brian K. Oldfield ’13 won singles matches to give the Engineers a spot in the final. Three other singles matches were unfinished, but MIT held leads in each match when the overall match was decided.
In the tournament final against Coast Guard on Sunday, the Engineers once again started out with three doubles wins and needed to win only two out of six singles matches for the championship. Zhang and Pang were the first two Engineers to finish, winning 6-3, 6-0, and 6-3, 6-4, respectively.
Pang was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
After the tournament, Wu earned NEWMAC Rookie of the Year honors, and Coach David W. Hagymas was named Coach of the Year. Seven MIT players were selected for the All-Conference team, on which MIT took all three doubles positions and four of the six singles spots.
With the two wins, the team is now 5-0 against conference opponents this year and improves its overall record to 13-4. Next up for the Engineers are the NCAA Regional Championships and NCAA Finals this weekend. They will also wait to see whether they are selected to play in the NCAA Team Championships.