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RIPON, Wis. – The 2012 Midwest Conference (MWC) Men’s Tennis Championships will play out starting Friday, April 27 and continue through the weekend at the Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wis. The team championship is set to take place on Friday while singles and doubles action will be played on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. 

The participants in the team tournament go unchanged from a year ago as Grinnell held a perfect 4-0 mark in the South Division while Carroll was tops in the North winning out on a three team tiebreaker. Grinnell will battle for the school’s ninth straight team championship and will face off against St. Norbert in the semifinals while Carroll will take on Monmouth in the other semifinal match. Earlier this season Grinnell dropped St. Norbert 7-2 on April 14 while Monmouth defeated Carroll 6-3 on March 23. Both semifinal matches will start at 9 a.m. with the championship match set to take place at 1 p.m. for a chance to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Carroll earned a spot in the MWC Tournament with a 9-5 mark in the regular season and finished tops in the North Division. Last season the Pioneers finished in a tie for third place after falling to eventual champion Grinnell and looks for redemption in 2012. Jack Michael has a team-best 12 wins in the No. 1 flight which is the second most wins in the MWC in the flight. Ryne Fertitta has a 7-5 mark in the No. 4 flight while John Silseth is 10-3 overall, competing mostly in the No. 5 flight where he has eight wins. Michael and Fertitta team up for a 11-3 overall record and play mostly out of the No. 2 doubles flight where they are 10-3 while Frankie Giuffre and Matt Joost are 10-5 overall between the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles flights.

Grinnell won its 12th Midwest Conference South Division title in a row while extending its winning streak in divisional play to 47 matches in the 2012 season. The Pioneers aim for their ninth straight MWC Tournament Championship, returning three individual champions after a 22 win regular season. Ishan Bhadkamkar returns after winning the No. 5 flight last season and has a combined 16-1 record this year which includes eight wins in the No.4 flight. Daniel Nellis captured a title in the No. 6 flight in 2011 and has posted a 13-5 mark in the No. 3 flight this season while Charlie Wilhelm has a team-high 18 wins where he has at least a win in every singles flight. Michael Cole and Elliott Czarnecki have teamed up for 12 wins in the No. 1 doubles flight with Bhadkamkar and Ben Charney having earned 12 wins out of the No. 2 doubles flight to lead Grinnell.

Illinois Col. improved to eighth place at the 2011 championships and looks to move up again with a young team that doesn’t have a single senior on the roster. Joshua Kuehn headlines the Blueboys in the No. 3 flight with a pair of wins while Michael Gilbreth (No. 2 flight) and Colin Ladd (No. 1 flight) each have a victory in their respective flights. In the doubles flights Caleb Brown and John Hoefert team up for a perfect 2-0 record in the No. 3 flight while Gilbreth and Ladd will play out of the No. 1 flight.

Knox compiled five wins in the 2012 season and look to move up in the standings after earning 19 points and finishing in seventh place a year ago. Walter Palmer leads the team with eight wins overall that includes a 4-2 mark in the No. 6 flight with teammate David Ham earning seven wins this season with an identical 4-2 mark in the No. 5 flight. Erik Hane will lead the top flights as he earned six wins this season while pairing with Palmer to go 6-6 in the No. 1 doubles flight. Ham is teamed with Jonathan Ng in the No. 3 doubles flight where they are 7-7 on the season with Shaun Mulani and Karolis Ruzgas having three wins in the No. 2 doubles flight.

The Foresters return to Madison after earning the second-most points in the singles and doubles flights last season. Lake Forest has a pair of returning champions coming back as John Adams will defend his No. 2 singles championship and Ryan Kreis will play for his second straight doubles title, despite losing partner Jon Flaksman to graduation. Kreis leads the team with a near perfect 15-2 mark out of the No. 1 flight while Adams is 14-3 in the No. 2 flight. Elliot Muth has been strong out of the No. 3 flight with six wins and has paired with Adams for an 8-4 mark in doubles play. Kreis and Anthony Warren will team up in the No. 1 flight after earning an 8-5 overall mark during the regular season.

Lawrence earned a sixth-place finish last season but will only battle for individual championships as they missed the team tournament for the second straight year. Jason Dunn and Caleb Ray lead the Vikings and are playing in the No. 1 and No. 3 flights, respectively. Dunn holds an 11-10 mark in his flight and looks to avenge a loss in the semifinals last season while Ray is also 11-10 and lost in the No. 2 flight semifinals. Cooper Smith holds a 10-5 mark in the No. 4 flight while Max Zlevor has seven wins in the No. 2 flight to strengthen the Viking lineup. Dunn and Zlevor team up to play in the No. 1 doubles flight where they have won ten matches this year, and Ray and Craig Sherwood have earned six wins out of the No. 2 doubles flight.

After missing the team tournament in 2010 Monmouth is back for the second straight year in search of its first team championship since 1938. The Fighting Scots finished the regular season with a record of 13-10 and suffered their only division loss at the hands of Grinnell. David Stewart is the reigning champion in the No. 4 singles flight as a freshman and compiled a 14-6 overall mark which included 11 wins in the No. 3 flight. Chris Franco will play out of the No. 1 flight with an 11-11 record while David Johnson (No. 2 flight) and Chris Utterback (No. 5 flight) also have 12 and 11 wins, respectively. Johnson and Stewart are the top pair in the doubles competition as they have an 11-5 mark in the No. 1 flight while Franco and Tyler Lampe are a combined 13-3 between the No. 2 and 3 flights.

Ripon took a ninth place finish last season and looks for improvement as they head to Madison for the 2012 MWC Championships. Derrick Winterhack will play out of the No. 2 singles flight where he earned two victories this season while teammate Sam Ewig also had a pair of wins from the No. 3 singles flight. In doubles action the duo of Eric Seiler and Alex Tande will battle out of the No. 1 flight where they earned a victory this season while the team of Ewig and Winterhack will play of the of the No. 2 flight.

St. Norbert qualified for the team tournament for the ninth straight season and aim for the first team championship in school history. Derek Harrington plays out of the No. 1 flight with four wins on the season which includes a win over a nationally ranked opponent in the Green Knights first contests of the season against Carthage. Nick Acosta has four overall wins, three of those in the No. 4 flight, while Matt Lobeck has seven wins in the No. 3 flight. Acosta and Harrington are the Green Knights top doubles pair as they have registered six wins out of the No. 1 flight while the No. 2 doubles team of Costin Fink and Tim Hartwick will enter the championships after winning three times during the regular season.
 

For full coverage with results, stats and more visit the 2012 MWC Men's Tennis Championships page.