Gophers Draw Maccabees in NCAA First Round

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Committee has selected the 43 teams that will compete in the 2016 NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championships. Goucher, which received an automatic bid to the tournament as champion of the Landmark Conference, was placed in a six-team regional in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The teams will play a single-elimination tournament with the first, second and third rounds played at regional sites, May 12-15. Kalamazoo College will host the team championship finals, which will be held May 23-25 at Stowe Stadium in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 35 conference champions, which form "Pool A." Three teams are selected from true independents and schools from conferences that do not have an automatic bid for their champions (Pool B). The remaining five teams are selected from those teams in conferences with automatic bids that did not win their conference's AQ and the remaining Pool B institutions (Pool C). The teams are geographically paired, whenever possible.

Carnegie Mellon is serving as host of the regional in which Goucher was placed. There will be two first-round matches played on Thursday, including one pitting the Gophers (19-4) againt Yeshiva. The Maccabees (13-3) made the tournament field as champions of the Skyline Conference.

Thursday's match is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

The other first-round match is involves Johns Hopkins and Gwynedd Mercy.

The Goucher-Yeshiva winner will advance to play the Tartans (16-6) in the second round on Friday. The survivor of the other first-round match moves on to face Mary Washington.