From Case Western Reserve University Athletics
The Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team, ranked second in Division III, will be heading to the NCAA Championship match for the second-straight season after defeating fourth-ranked Middlebury College 5-1 in their semifinal match on Tuesday morning.
CWRU will now have its shot at redemption, after losing to Emory in the NCAA Championship match last season. The Spartans will be aiming to hoist the first NCAA Team Championship trophy in the history of the CWRU athletics program when the team takes the court on Wednesday. CWRU became just the 13th Division III program to register appearances in the NCAA Division III Championship match in back-to-back years.
Adding to the redemption storyline will be the Spartans' opponent in the National Championship match, the top-ranked University of Chicago, which defeated third-ranked Tufts 5-4 in the other semifinal match on Tuesday to improve to 21-1 on the year. Wednesday's match will be the third meeting this season between the two teams, each of which has been played with a championship at stake. On Sunday, February 27, the Spartans bested Chicago 5-1 to win the 2022 ITA D3 National Team Indoor Championship. The teams met again on Saturday, April 19 in the UAA Championship match, with the Maroons coming away with a 5-0 victory for the conference title.
On Tuesday, junior James Hopper and graduate student Jonathan Powell, ranked third in the Central Region, gave the Spartans the early lead, winning five of the last six games to claim an 8-4 win at no. 1 doubles over Stan Morris and David Vilys, the top-ranked duo in the Northeast. The win gave Hopper his program-record matching 33rd doubles victory of the season, tying the mark set by former Spartans CJ Krimbill and Louis Stuerke in 2015-16.
Meanwhile, Powell secured the 102nd doubles win of his career, tying him for the second-most in program history.
Middlebury responded at no. 3 doubles, where Neel Epstein and Zachary Hilty defeated senior Chaitanya Aduru and junior Michael Sutanto 8-4, evening the score at 1-1.
The lead coming out of doubles play would be decided in the second match, where CWRU sophomores Vishwa Aduru and Sahil Dayal, ranked 13th in the region, faced off against Aidan Harris and Noah Laber. The match was a back-and-forth contest, with the Panthers taking a 5-3 lead, before the Spartan duo battled back to win the next three games and take a 6-5 advantage. Harris and Laber responded with two-straight games of their own and were serving at 7-6 to six to take the match lead. However, Aduru and Dayal broke serve to force a tiebreaker. CWRU won the first six points of the tiebreaker, taking a 6-0 lead into the changeover. Middlebury claimed the next three points, before Aduru and Dayal locked up their match-clinching point for an 8-7 (3) win, giving the Spartans a 2-1 advantage heading into the singles matches.
Off the momentum from the doubles win, the Spartans surged to a one-set lead on each of the six singles courts. First-year Ansh Shah (ranked 12th in the Central Region) continued a stretch of strong play in the NCAA Championships, besting Aidan Harris (ranked 21st in the Northeast) in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4 in the third singles match. Shah remained undefeated against Division III opponents in the spring, and improved to 29-6 overall, one win shy of CJ Krimbill's program record for singles wins in a campaign.
At no. 1 singles, Hopper, ranked first in the Central, added a 6-2, 6-4 win over Morris, ranked second in the Northeast, to put CWRU a victory away from clinching.
For the second-straight day, Powell would secure the match-clinching win for the Spartans at no. 6 singles, this time with a 6-3, 6-3 triumph over Zihao Yuan, to give CWRU its spot in the National Championship.
When play was stopped, Vishwa Aduru (ranked 13th in the region) had split sets with Laber at no. 2 singles, 6-1, 1-6, Sutanto (ranked 21st in the region) led Hilty at no. 4 singles, 7-6 (3), 3-0, and Chaitanya Aduru was up at no. 5 singles against Epstein, 6-2, 4-4.
The Spartans now stand at 25-4 overall on the season, while Middlebury ended its season with a 21-3 record.