ELON, N.C. – The sixth-seeded Elon men’s tennis team heads to Charleston, S.C., for the annual Southern Conference Championships where the Phoenix will battle the 11th-seeded Citadel Bulldogs in the first round on Thursday, April 19 at 2 p.m. Elon has played in the championship match of the tourney in four of the last five seasons is looking for its first league tournament title since the 2007 season.
“We are looking forward to the SoCon Tournament this week,” remarked Elon head coach Michael Leonard. “For most of our team, this will be their first time playing in the tournament. We have lost some close matches to several of the higher seeds and are hoping to turn that around this weekend.”
Elon opened 2012 SoCon play with a 7-0 victory at The Citadel on March 4. The Phoenix has won five of its last six matches against the Bulldogs but the teams have never met in the postseason tournament. The first round match will be played at the O. Perry Earle, Jr. Tennis Center on the campus of The Citadel with the remainder of the tournament at the College of Charleston Tennis Center. With a win on Thursday, Elon will battle No. 3 Appalachian State on Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals. Live statistics will be available for all matches.
The men’s tennis team has one of the youngest squads in recent history, with five freshmen and two sophomores seeing significant action this season. Senior Eric Turner and junior Carlos Arboleda are the only players on the team who have played at least one match in a conference tournament.
Elon played its traditionally challenging non-conference schedule and ended the regular season with an 8-14 mark and an even 5-5 record in league action. The Phoenix has played a significant amount of tight matches — of the five SoCon losses, three were by scores of 4-3 and the other two were 5-2 decisions.
For the second consecutive season, an Elon player was recognized as the league freshman of the year as Stefan Fortmann was the SoCon’s top rookie. Fortmann was 8-2 at number two singles against conference opponents. He teamed with last year’s SoCon Freshman of the Year Cameron Silverman at number one doubles at the end of the year and the pair went 5-0.
Silverman, Elon’s top singles player, suffered only one loss in conference action — a three-set decision to the eventual SoCon Player of the Year. He earned first-team all-league honors in both singles and doubles. Silverman played number two singles last season but an illness sidelined him for the conference tournament.
Turner, who battled injury much of the season, was recognized on first-team doubles with Silverman and Fortmann and Jordan Kaufman were selected on the all-freshman team. Kaufman jumped from number five singles to number three during the season due to the Turner injury and went 8-2 in the SoCon.
The winner of the SoCon Tournament will receive the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.