The Case Western men’s tennis team finished their fall season last weekend with a trip to Kalamazoo College for the United States Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Regional championship tournament.

Many Spartans found success during the two-day event including freshman Wesley Maddox, who ended the weekend as champion of the collegiate championship, and also four additional players ending the day in the round of 16 for the main singles draw.

Maddox played well during the entire tournament, beating out players from North Central University, Augustana College, Washington University and Allegheny College without dropping a single set before meeting in the finals with fellow Spartan Louis Stuerke.

The match was well-fought on each side of the net with both players scoring points, but Maddox ended on top with set scores of 6-4, 7-6. Freshman Joshua Dughi also played well in this division, advancing to the semifinal round before being eliminated from the competition by Maddox with set scores of 6-2, 6-0. Freshman Kevin Dong was eliminated in the quarterfinal round by Eric Zishka from Washington University.

Case Western athletes also showed well in the main singles draw. The top men of the team went up against the premier regional players in a difficult competition to vie for a spot in the National Small College competition later this month.

CWRU came into the competition with four seeded players. Sophomore Christopher Krimbill led the team ranked fourth heading into the tournament. He was followed by Will Drougas, Eric Klawitter and James Fojtasek ranked seventh, twenty-fifth and twenty-ninth, respectively.
Coach Todd Wojtkowski knew that there were high expectations leading into the competition. “This is where we find out where we stack up,” Wojtkowski said. “We need to try to be the best.”

Klawitter and Drougas both made it to the quarterfinal round. Klawitter was eliminated by Sam Geier of Kenyon College, who went on to win the competition. Drougas fell to Sven Kranz of the University of Chicago. Krimbill and Fojtasek were both eliminated in the round of 16.

In doubles play, the team of Klawitter/Krimbill advanced to the quarterfinal round of the main draw and partners Viswajit Simhadri/Bas Van Lent made it to the semifinal round of the collegiate bracket.

The team will have some time to recover before the second portion of the season begins in January. They will look to improve before taking on divisional and NCAA-level play.