Seahawks Draw Top Seed Wake Forest In NCAA Regionals

NCAA Bracket | NCAA History | NCAA Match Results | Winston-Salem Regional Tournament Central

WILMINGTON, North Carolina – The Colonial Athletic Association champion UNCW men's tennis team will make its return to the national stage by traveling to Winston-Salem, N.C., next weekend to take on No. 1 national seed Wake Forest in the NCAA Regionals.

The young Seahawks, who have won three of the last five CAA championships, learned late Tuesday that they'll join the host Demon Deacons, Georgia State and Kentucky at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex.

"To see you name come up is pretty exciting, so it's rewarding," a smiling 10-year UNCW Head Coach Mait DuBois said on his 43^rd birthday. "If you had told me when these guys were moving in that we were going to be here right now, I would be surprised.

"We put in a lot of work to get to this point. Playing the No. 1 team in the country is a great opportunity and our team is not one to back down from anyone.

"With our young group, the more experience they get, the better. Every bit of this will make us better in the years to come. We're going to do our thing and compete like no one else competes - that's what you can expect."

UNCW will be the No. 4 seed in the pod and faces No. 1 Wake Forest at 5 p.m. on May 12. No. 2 Kentucky and No. 3 Georgia State meet in the earlier match at 2 p.m.

The Seahawks are one of 64 teams playing at 16 first and second-round sites. First and second-round competition takes place May 12-13 and features four teams playing in a single-elimination format. The winner of each site advances to the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga., where the 16 teams will compete for the national championship on May 18-23. The event will be hosted by the University of Georgia.

The young Seahawks, 14-8, will carry a roster of eight freshmen, one sophomore and two juniors to the regionals after dispatching Delaware (4-0), College of Charleston (4-2) and William & Mary (4-2) last weekend in the CAA Tournament. UNCW went winless in six matches against nationally-ranked teams during the dual match season.

It will be the fifth NCAA appearance in the last seven years for the Seahawks, who stand 1-5 in NCAA matches. UNCW's lone win came on May 10, 2013, when the Seahawks stunned 18^th-ranked South Carolina, 4-0, at Duke's Ambler Tennis Stadium.

UNCW has faced six different teams in the NCAA Tournament through the years. In their last appearance at the nationals, the Seahawks fell to No. 23-ranked Penn State, 4-2, on May 10, 2014.

NCAA Tournament matches will be regulation dual matches with three eight-game, pro-set doubles played for one team point, followed by six singles matches, each valued at one team point, played in best-of-three sets. Regular scoring will be used and a 12-point tiebreaker will be played at seven-games-all in doubles and at six-games-all in singles.

Thirty-one conferences, including the CAA, received automatic qualification into the 2017 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships.

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Seahawks Draw Top Seed Wake Forest In NCAA Regionals