2017 Northeast Conference (NEC) Men's Tennis Championship Headquarters
West Windsor, NJ - The Northeast Conference (NEC) has announced the seeding for the upcoming 2017 NEC Tennis Championships, set to commence on Friday, April 23 at Mercer County Park in West Windsor, NJ.
The tournament will be contested over three days in a single elimination format.
The Wagner College men's tennis team earned its highest seeding since the conference established team seedings back in 1999-2000, as the Green & White will be the No. 3 seed and take on the No. 6 Sacred Heart University Pioneers.
The Seahawks and Pioneers will be meeting for the second straight season in the NEC opening round, after last season Wagner pulling off a dramatic 4-3 upset of Sacred Heart, in the No. 4 vs. No. 5 matchup.
"We have been training all season in preparing for the NEC Tournament," commented second-year head coach,
Jason Sinkoff. "It's going to be a fun and intense atmosphere, and we look forward to the challenge. Sacred Heart is a well-coached, good, young team. They beat us during the regular season a year ago, and then we upset them in the NEC Tournament. Our guys know from those two matches not to take this team lightly."
The Seahawks posted a 13-7 overall mark and went 4-1 in conference, tying Saint Francis U, the No. 2 seed, for the most wins this season.
Of the 13 wins this year, seven of those victories came via shutouts, most recently a 7-0 triumph over Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) member Niagara, in the regular season finale on April 15.
The Seahawks enter the tournament riding a three-game winning streak and have won the last two meetings with SHU. Back on March 5, Wagner recorded a 7-0 win over the Pioneers in New Haven, CT, for the Seahawks' fourth shutout triumph of the season.
For the second straight season under coach Sinkoff, five Seahawk student-athletes posted double-digit single win totals, led by sophomore
Anatoliy Lashkul (Kiev, Ukraine/High School #78), who recorded a team-best 15 wins, nearly half of them coming out of the No. 1 Flight position.
Junior
Charlton Boyd (Shreveport, LA/Loyola College Prep), sophomore
Eric Poland (Fort Meyers, FL/Bishop Verot) and freshman
Hans Ohrner (Margate, FL/Coral Springs Christian Academy) all tied for the second-most wins on the squad this year with 14. Boyd ran his three-year Seahawk career record to 48-21 while posting an 8-3 mark out of the No. 6 Flight spot. Poland moved to three matches over .500, as he sports a career record of 25-22. Sophomore
Dale Sandy (Durban, South Africa/Kersney College Secondary School) was the fifth Seahawk to record double-digit victories with 11, giving him 22 career wins in two seasons.
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