NCAA Division III Championships Bracket
MADISON, N.J. - For the fifth time in school history and the first time since 2013, the Drew University men's tennis team will compete in the NCAA Division III Championships when it joins four other teams in a first, second, and third-round pod at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C. from Thursday through Saturday.
The Rangers (10-0) will take on Lancaster Bible College (11-1) in the first round on Thursday at 2 p.m., with the winner moving on to face North Carolina Wesleyan in the second round on Friday at 10 a.m. The winner of that match will take on the winner of Farmingdale State and Johns Hopkins on Saturday in the third round and the final match of the regional.
Drew received an automatic bid in the tournament by virtue of its 5-2 victory over the University of Scranton in the Landmark Conference final this past Saturday. Lancaster Bible also earned an automatic bid after defeating Northern Vermont-Lyndon 9-0 in the North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC)–North Atlantic Conference (NAC) crossover match.
The Rangers are 3-4 all-time in the NCAA Championship. They picked up their last national tournament victory with a 5-2 first-round win over Farmingdale State in 2013. They also posted first-round wins over Farmingdale (5-1) in 2012 and Lycoming (5-0) in 2010.
After finishing 7-0 during the regular season, Drew rolled through the Landmark Conference Championship. The Rangers opened with a 5-0 victory over Elizabethtown College in the quarterfinals before winning by an identical score over Susquehanna University in the semifinals.
The Rangers recently had five team members earn a spot on the All-Landmark Conference Team, including graduate student
Geoffrey Diehl, who was named the MVP of the Landmark Conference Tournament. He has gone 7-2 at No. 1 singles and is riding a five-match winning streak. Diehl has also teamed up with junior
Bret Schuler for a 10-0 mark at No. 2 doubles.
Diehl was a First-Team All-Landmark Conference selection in both singles and doubles while Schuler was also honored with a spot on the all-conference first team for doubles. In addition, junior
Dan Blumenthal (No. 2 singles) received second-team all-conference recognition in singles while sophomore
John Dickey and senior
Bryce Kennedy (No. 1 doubles) were second-team honorees for doubles.
Led by Head Coach
Scott Veith, the Landmark Conference Coach of the Year, the Rangers have won 25 straight matches dating back to the 2019 season.
Lancaster Bible enters Thursday's match on a nine-match winning streak. The Chargers finished the season 4-0 in NEAC play before defeating Penn State Abington 6-3 in the NEAC semifinals and Penn State Harrisburg 6-3 in the NEAC final. Because the NEAC does not have enough teams for an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championships, the conference shared the bid with the NAC, and the winners played in a crossover match to determine the team that would represent the conferences at NCAAs.
North Carolina Wesleyan (20-2) captured its 12th-straight USA South title with a 9-0 win over Covenant back on May 1. Farmingdale State (6-1) defeated Manhattanville 5-4 in the final of the Skyline Conference tournament this past Sunday to earn their automatic bid while Johns Hopkins (7-0) received its auto bid by winning the Centennial Conference regular-season title.
Thirty-seven teams are competing in the 2021 NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championships. The teams will play a single-elimination tournament with the first, second, and third rounds played at predetermined sites, Friday through Sunday, May 14-16, or Thursday-Saturday, May 13-15. The University of the South and the Chattanooga Sports Commission will host the team championships finals, which will be held May 24-26 at Champions Tennis Club in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 31 conference champions, which form "Pool A." Three teams are selected from true independents and schools from conferences that do not have an automatic bid for their champions (Pool B). The remaining three 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.
