The St. Thomas Aquinas College Men's Tennis team was ranked #7 in the East Region in the first NCAA Division II poll of the season, released on Wednesday.
The Spartans, currently 10-4 (2-1 ECC) are looking for their first-ever NCAA Tournament bid via either an East Coast Conference Championship, which would also be a program first, or an at-large bid. STAC has appeared in the ECC Tennis Tourney the last two seasons, falling in the semifinal round each year (2016 - NYIT and 2017 - Queens), but seek a third consecutive trip to the conference playoffs under Head Coach Matt Capell, with full intentions of making some noise in the postseason this year.
In the East Region, the Tournament Champions of the ECC, Northeast-10 (NE-10), and Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) each earn an automatic bid to the NCAAs, with the other three bids offered to the remaining top-ranked teams on an "at-large" basis. The current rankings have NYIT (ECC, 6-0 record) in the top slot, Concordia College (CACC, 8-3) at No. 2, Queens (ECC, 14-4) at three, Merrimack (NE-10, 10-7) at four, Chestnut Hill (CACC, 6-4) at five, So. New Hampshire (NE-10, 8-6) at six, followed by the Spartans at 10-4, just outside the six team regional tourney cut off at seven.
STAC has three matches remaining in 2017-2018 regular season play, beginning with an ECC road contest at the University of the District of Columbia (5-6) on Friday. The Spartans then travel to Old Westbury on April 11th to faceoff with conference foe and #1 ranked NYIT (6-0), before hosting Le Moyne College (9-4) on Senior Day, April 15th.
NCAA Men's Tennis East Region Rankings
- NYIT (6-0)
- Concordia (8-3)
- Queens (14-4)
- Merrimack (10-7)
- Chestnut Hill (6-4)
- So. New Hampshire (8-6)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (10-4)
- Le Moyne (9-4)