This past weekend, the Binghamton University men’s tennis team continued its streak of dominance, capturing its fourth straight America East Championship. The Bearcats made amends for their disappointing 2-12 start to the season and will yet again head to the NCAA tournament.
On Saturday, top-seeded Binghamton took on SUNY rival Stony Brook University in the tournament’s semifinals. The Bearcats swept the three doubles matches to take the doubles point, and then won their top four singles matches in straight sets to advance to a 5-0 win.
In Sunday’s finals the Bearcats took on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, whom they defeated earlier this season on April 2 by a score of 6-1. Once again, the Bearcats took the doubles point, winning all three of their matches. BU then once again dominated the singles matches, dropping only the No. 5 match, and rolled through to its fourth consecutive America East Championship, winning 4-1. The Bearcats led in the two unfinished matches.
Binghamton has faced UMBC in the AE tournament each season since 2006, winning the last four. The Bearcats beat the Retrievers 4-0 in last season’s conference finals.
Senior Sven Vloedgraven, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player and ranked No. 77 in the most recent ITA rankings, dominated in both matches. He dropped only one game against UMBC to improve to 32-7 overall and 21-2 in duals, and extend his win streak to 21 matches. Vloedgraven has not dropped a match since Jan. 29. Senior Arnav Jain also improved his record to 27-9 overall and 22-3 in duals.
The Bearcats’ dominance this weekend caps an incredible season turnaround. After beginning 2-12, BU won 10 out of its next 11 matches, including going undefeated in April.
The key has been much more consistent play in its doubles matches as well as its No. 4-6 matches. In the earlier part of the season, Binghamton would win its top three singles matches but be unable to clinch the win with either the doubles point or any of the other singles matches. Recently, however, the team has been hitting on all cylinders, winning many of its matches in blowouts.
“We struggled a bit in the start and in the middle of the season,” head coach Adam Cohen said. “We lost some close matches to some good teams and had some guys not playing up to their full capability, but we came back strong and played well to finish out the season.”
The seniors were able to pick up their fourth title in as many years, three of which came with victories against UMBC in the finals.
The team will now wait for the selections and seeds to be announced today at 5:30 p.m., when they will find out whom they will face in the first round of the tournament. But one thing is for sure: It will be one of the top 16 teams in the country.
After winning their past three titles, the Bearcats haven’t had much success in the national tournament as they have been eliminated in the first round each year. Last year they fell to No. 24 Georgia Institute of Technology (4-1), in 2009 to Texas A&M University (4-0) and in 2008 to University of Tulsa (4-0).
“We’re looking forward to the challenge,” Cohen said.
The NCAA tournament is scheduled to begin on May 19 at Stanford University.