For the second time in a row, Quinnipiac men’s tennis not only raised the MAAC trophy above its heads, but ventures to the New York City Regional for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
After clinching its first ever MAAC Regular Season Title, the Bobcats headed into the MAAC Tournament as the No. 1 seed, driving down to West Windsor, New Jersey to face No. 5 Niagara in the second round, beating the Purple Eagles 4-1.
“Unbelievable weekend, unbelievable season,” head coach Brian Adinolfi said.
Unbelievable weekend indeed, as the Bobcats then took on No. 6 Rider to defend their title. And once again, in a 4-1 fashion, they did.
“All the teams in MAAC are very equal,” Adinolfi said. “Anybody could beat anybody. There’s good teams that didn’t even make the tournament that could’ve beaten us. It was sort of a rough start, but we knew what we were getting into. I think it was probably the toughest schedule QU men’s tennis has ever had. Each win we had was not by a lot, but we think that made the difference. We maxed it out, we were as ready as we can be and that’s all you can do really, to get the edge.”
And then on Monday at 5:30 p.m., the Bobcats sat in the Recreation and Wellness Center press conference room to patiently await their fate in the NCAA Tournament.
And once again, the bracket revealed them going down to Columbia University — to the disappointment of the team — but this time to face the unseeded Clemson Tigers.
The winner of that game will face the winner of the match between the Columbia Lions and the Binghamton Bearcats. It truly is a Battle of the Cats Regional.
“For me, I’m happy with Columbia, it’s close,” Adinolfi said. “I know the kids probably wanna get to a place and go on a trip but I think it’s perfect. I don’t think Quinnipiac has ever had a draw where it wasn’t playing a top 16 team.”
Even though they are unseeded, the Tigers are still No. 25 in the country with a 21-7 record this season.
“We’re very excited,” freshman Elias Hoxha said. “It’s gonna be a tough match obviously. We’re not expecting to win, but we’re gonna give our best and see how it goes.”
“We’re looking to have a good result,” Adinolfi said. “We’re obviously gonna play as if we’re gonna pull off the upset but we’re also gonna play to make it interesting and potentially pull off a couple of matches.”
Obviously, Quinnipiac is the underdog. Last year, the Bobcats lost to the Lions 0-4. This year, however, most of the team members are returners, and the new faces on the team have already proved they belong on the top.
On paper, Quinnipiac should have a much higher chance to make its mark this time around.
“The culture here (is that) of hard work, these guys here are like brothers,” Adinolfi said. “Just everyone, all the way down to the No. 10 (player), when we’re practicing for a match, our last guy is beating one of our top guys. All those little things actually matter and you think ‘This might pay off.’”
We will see about that, on Friday May 2, at 10 a.m. at the Philip and Cheryl Milstein Family Tennis Center in New York City.
