2010 CMS Stags Tennis Season in Review
2010 was another banner year for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Tennis Program, with the Stags taking the third place trophy at the NCAA Division III Team Championship in Oberlin, Ohio in May. The Stags' season was one filled with team and individual accolades: a fifth consecutive undefeated conference title, a second top three national finish in the past three years, ITA All-Academic Team honors, an ITA singles title, an Ojai doubles title, and two ITA All-American awards.
The Biszantz Family Tennis Center, now
in its second season as home of Stags and Athenas, garnered two
coveted design awards: the American Sports Builders Assciation
Outoor Facility of the Year and the City of Claremont Design
Excellence for new construction and sustainable landscape. The NCAA
also announced that the 2011 Division III Men's and Women's Team
and Individual Championships will be returning to Biszantz after
CMS successfully hosted in 2009.
Once again playing among the most challenging schedule of any
Division III program, the Stags earned wins over five (5) top ten
teams: #5 UC Santa Cruz (twice), #6 Washington University in St.
Louis, #7 Cal Lutheran (twice), #8 Carnegie Mellon and #10 Trinity,
TX (twice). In all, the Stags had wins over nine nationally ranked
opponents, losing to only NCAA champions Middlebury and NCAA
finalists Amherst at the Division III level. The Stags’ 24-6
record was the program’s fifth consecutive season with 24
wins or more.
In March, six CMS doubles teams
participated in the presitigious Pacific Coast Doubles Tournament
in La Jolla, CA against teams from the Pac-10 and other Division I
programs. In April, the Ojai Valley Tournament featured an all-CMS
doubles final, with the Stags' Eric MacColl (Sr. - Greenbrae, CA) and Brandon Wei (So. - Lake Oswego, OR)
defeating Robbie Erani (So. - New York,
NY) and Ronald Wu (Jr. - Los Altos,
CA).
Senior Captain Mikey Lim (Honolulu, HI) led CMS with
a 20-7 record at #2 singles, giving him 76 singles wins in his CMS
career . Lim was the recipient of the ITA West Region Senior
Player of the Year award, and earned ITA All-American and 1st
Team All-SCIAC honors for the second time in his career. Fellow
senior Eric MacColl joined Lim as one of three 1st Team All-SCIAC
honorees in the Stags staring lineup. MacColl's 21 singles wins and
27 doubles wins gave him the most combined wins of any of his
teammates as well as the best combined winning percentage.
Robbie Erani - the Stags' third recipient of 1st Team All-SCIAC
honors - earned his second consecutive 20-win season in both
singles and doubles at the #1 position. Erani also earned ITA
All-American honors, was ranked as high as #3 nationally, and won
the ITA West Region singles title in October.
The Stags' success in 2010 was due in
large part to the consistently strong play of freshmen Alex Johnson (Thousand Oaks, CA) and
Mac Cahill (Southport, CT). Playing #5
and #6 singles respectively, Johnson and Cahill each had 21-win
singles records and were perfect in NCAA team tournament play.
Johnson's 21-2 singles record and .913 winning percentage was the
best single season in Stags Tennis history.
2010 Season Bests - By
the Numbers
Singles Wins
21 – Eric MacColl, Alex Johnson, Mac Cahill
Doubles Wins
27 – Eric MacColl
Combined Wins
48 – Eric MacColl
Singles Winning Percentage
.913 – Alex Johnson
Doubles Winning Percentage
.800
– Brandon Wei
Combined Winning Percentage
.762 – Eric
MacColl
ITA All-Americans
2 – Robbie Erani and Mikey Lim (both singles)
ITA Year-End National Singles Rankings #10 –
Robbie Erani; #18 – Mikey Lim; #41 – Eric MacColl
ITA Year-End National Doubles Rankings #17 –
Robbie Erani and Ronald Wu
ITA
Scholar-Athletes
7 – Russell Brockett, Myles Crandall, Matt Ellis, Mikey
Lim,
Alex Johnson, Spencer MacColl, and Sam Wong