April 30, 2009

Indianapolis, IN - The NCAA Division II Men's and Women's Tennis Committee has selected the teams and 16 preliminary-round sites for the 2009 NCAA Division II Men's Tennis Championships.

The 16 preliminary-round tournaments will be conducted May 7-8, 8-9 or 7-9, with the winner of each preliminary-round tournament advancing to the finals in Altamonte Springs, Florida, hosted by the Central Florida Sports Commission and Rollins College, May 13-16.

Adelphi Unversity will play Merrimack College in the first round of the East Region #1 at Queens College in Flushing, New York. This isn't the first meeting between these to schools, with the Panthers coming out on top of the Warriors, 6-3, during their spring break play. Merrimack would go on to finish their season 13-5. The winner of the match will move on to face the winner of the Concordia/Philadelphia Sciences bracket for the East Region #1 championship.

The championships consist of a 16-team single elimination tournament. Each of the following eight regions will conduct two preliminary-round tournaments: Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast and West. The selection of teams for the championships is based on prescribed criteria listed in the NCAA Division II Men's and Women's Tennis Championships Handbook and approved by the NCAA Division II Championships Committee.

For information pertaining to teams, dates and site, please see below for the regional brackets.

Fourteen conferences receive automatic qualification into the 2009 men's championships. Each conference and its automatic qualifier is listed below:

Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association - Shaw
Conference Carolinas - Anderson (South Carolina)
East Coast Conference - Concordia (New York)
Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Northwood (Michigan)
Great Lakes Valley Conference - Rockhurst
Gulf South Conference - Valdosta State
Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association - Washburn
Northeast-10 Conference - Stonehill
Peach Belt Conference - Armstrong Atlantic State
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference - Metropolitan State
South Atlantic Conference - Mars Hill
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - Morehouse
Sunshine State Conference - Barry
West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference - West Virginia Wesleyan

In the final of the 2008 championships, Armstrong Atlantic State University defeated Barry, 5-0.

This is the second year in a row the Panthers have made the NCAA Regional tournament, and the third in the program's history. Head Coach Ed Canner has guided the Racketmen to two tournaments in as many years at the helm. Last season the Brown and Gold fell to the Bryant University Bulldogs 5-3, and in 2003, the Panthers' first bid, fell to Assumption 5-0.

For more information regarding the NCAA Division II Men's Tennis Championships, log on to www.ncaa.com.