Click Here For NEC Championship Headquarters
Click Here For Day One Release/Individual Results (4/17, PDF)
Click Here For Day Two Release/Individual Results (4/18, PDF)
Click Here For Day Three Release/Individual Results (4/19, PDF)
Click Here For Updated NEC Tennis Championship Brackets
Click Here For NEC Tennis Championship CoverItLive Blog
Click Here For Post-Semifinal Interviews/Highlights: LIU Women | Bryant Women | Bryant Men | FDU Men
Click Here For Championship Interviews/Highlights: Bryant Women | Bryant Men

West Windsor, NJ -- It was a great day to be a Bulldog.  On a historic day for Bryant, the Bulldogs pulled off a sweep of the men’s and women’s crowns at the 2015 NEC Tennis Championships.  The Bryant men won their second straight title with a 4-3 victory over perennial NEC power Fairleigh Dickinson in yet another instant classic between the two programs, while the women won their first conference championship with a 4-0 triumph over top-seeded LIU Brooklyn.  With the wins, Bryant became the 11th school in league history to pull off a finals sweep.  The championship event, for the 15th straight year, was contested at the Mercer County Tennis Center in West Windsor, New Jersey.

The second-seeded Bryant women were firing on all cylnders in the program’s first finals appearance.  After earning the doubles point against top-seeded LIU, the Bulldogs went up 2-0 on the strength of senior Rosie Bird’s (Hamilton, New Zealand/Hillcrest) 6-1, 6-0 win at #6 singles.  Sophomore Ryan Brown (Austin, TX/Lake Travis) won her third straight NEC Tournament match in impressive fashion, defeating reigning NEC Player of the Year Sanne Louwers (Nuenen, Netherlands/Mgr. Cuytenlaan), 6-2, 6-1, at the #1 spot.  With the Bulldogs within a point of clinching, all eyes were on Bryant’s Linnea Sjoberg (Stockholms Ian, Sweeden).  And when the freshman claimed a 6-2, 6-1 win at the #3 flight, the celebration began for 15th-year head coach Barbara Cilli and her team.  In its two previous NEC Tournament appearances, the Bulldogs had been ousted in the quarterfinal (2013) and semifinal (2014) rounds.

Emotions were sky high during a memorable men’s tennis final that served as a rubber match between the two programs.  FDU won the NEC title in 2013 and Bryant returned the favor a year ago, both by 4-3 final scores.  The competitive nature of this year’s final was no different.  Top-seeded Bryant took the doubles point this time around, and raced out to a 3-0 lead after wins by freshmen Luke Lorenz (Colorado Springs, CO/Discovery Canyon Campus) (6-4, 6-3) and Jorge Ortiz-Garcia (Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico) (6-3, 6-4) at the #3 and #6 flights, respectively.  There was no quit in second-seeded FDU as freshman Diego Garnel (Lisbon, Portugal/Carcavelos Tenis) posted a 7-6, 6-4 victory at #5 singles, and after sophomore Jacob Whalley (Wirral, England/Calday Grange Grammar School) won 6-4, 6-2 at the #2 spot, the Knights pulled to within 3-2 with two matches still on the courts.  In a heavyweight battle between two of the NEC’s top players, three-time NEC Player of the Year Arvis Berzins (Adazi, Latvia/Riga Centre Language School) of FDU knocked off Bryant freshman Matt Kuhar (Smithfield, RI/Smithfield) to knot the score at 3-all.  At this point, everyone’s focus shifted to the #4 match between Bryant’s Oliver Welsh (San Diego, CA/Lauren Springs) and FDU’s Gonzalo Quintana (Guayaquil, Ecuador/Colegio Particular Pert).  Quintana won 6-4 in the first set, but Welsh bounced back for a 6-4 win in set two.  With the score tied at 5-5, and with Quintana battling cramps, Welsh was able to grind out the final two games for a 7-5 third set victory and begin the raucous celebration for ninth-year head coach Ron Gendron and his charges.

Bryant joins FDU (1988, 2012 and 2013), UMBC (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003) and Quinnipiac (2004, 2005 and 2006) as teams that came away with an NEC finals sweep.

The Bryant men and women will now go on to represent the NEC in the upcoming NCAA Championships in mid May.