UA Men's Tennis Starts NCAA Tourney Saturday Morning
5/7/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
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The University of Alabama men's tennis team (17-9, 4-7 SEC) will face Marist (22-2) in the east regional of the NCAA tournament Saturday morning on the Harvard University campus.
"It's important to realize that we haven't won a first round NCAA match in four years and we need to get off to a good start Saturday morning," Alabama head coach Billy Pate said. "We're looking forward to match because we feel like if we play well we will be successful and have a match to go to the sweet 16. I know (Marist head coach) Tim Smith well and he does a great job and he'll have them well prepared."
The Tide will play at 8:30 a.m. EST Saturday morning and the winner of the match will face the winner of Virginia Commonwealth and Harvard on Sunday at noon EST.
Pate, in his first year with Alabama, continues a string of three consecutive years with an NCAA tournament berth. Alabama made the dance for the last two seasons under Adam Steinberg, who now leads the Pepperdine men's program. This is Alabama's 10th appearance in the national tournament.
The winner of the east regional will advance to Athens, Ga. for the "Sweet 16", the championship site. The entire tournament is a single elimination event. Alabama is the 15th overall seed and the No. 1 seed at the east regional. Virginia Commonwealth is not seeded, but is ranked 17th in the Omni Hotels collegiate tennis rankings. Harvard is ranked 40th, and Marist is unranked. Alabama is ranked 16th in the rankings.
