Indianapolis – The NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Committee has selected the 43 teams that will compete in the 2015 NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championships. The Gustavus Adolphus men’s tennis team is one of the participants in the year’s tournament, receiving the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s automatic berth after winning the MIAC Playoff Championship last Saturday.
The teams will play a single-elimination tournament with the first, second and third rounds played at regional sites May 8-10. Ohio Northern University and the Warren County Convention and Visitors Bureau will host the team championships finals, which will be held May 18-20 at Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio. Student-athletes selected to the individual championships will be announced Wednesday, May 6.
The championships provide for a 43-team tournament. Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 34 conference champions, which form “Pool A.” Four teams are selected from true independents and schools from conferences that do not have an automatic bid for their champions (Pool B). The remaining five teams are selected from those teams in conferences with automatic bids that did not win their conference’s AQ and the remaining Pool B institutions (Pool C). The teams are geographically paired, whenever possible.
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The Golden Gusties will travel to Whitewater, Wisconsin where the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will serve as host of this weekend’s NCAA regional. Along with Gustavus, UW-Whitewater will host Chicago University (Chicago, Ill.) of the University Athletic Association, Coe College (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) of the Midwest Conference, Edgewood College (Madison, Wis.) of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.
Gustavus is making its 28th appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1983. With an all-time NCAA Tournament record of 47-32, the Golden Gusties have finished runner-up twice, third three times, and fourth five times in their previous 27 showings under the current “true team” format. Prior to 1983, Gustavus won NCAA Championships in 1980 and 1982 when champions were based on individual scoring at the NCAA Tournament. In all, Gustavus has earned a trip the NCAA’s postseason tournament a total of 30 times in school history.
In last season’s NCAA regional held at the Brown Outdoor Courts in St. Peter, Gustavus defeated UW-Whitewater 5-0 in its opening match before seeing its season come to an end with a tightly-contested 5-3 loss to Trinity University (Texas) in the third round.