DUDLEY, Mass. – The Nichols College men's tennis team is making a return trip to the NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championship and will take on former Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) foe Colby-Sawyer on Thursday, May 9 at 9:30 a.m. in the first round at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. In the event of inclement weather, the match will be moved indoors and begin at 8:00 a.m.
 
The winner will be matched up with nationally-ranked host Williams (18-3) in the second round on Friday. Skidmore (11-8) and UMass Boston (14-3) will meet in the other opening round contest with the victor facing MIT (18-2) on Friday. The two remaining teams will face off on Saturday for the right to advance to the quarterfinal round in Kalamazoo, Mich. on May 20.
 
Nichols (18-5) tied the program record for single-season wins and captured the conference's automatic berth by defeating top-seeded Roger Williams, 5-1, on Saturday in the CCC Championship match. In the process, the team claimed back-to-back crowns and became the first Nichols College team to make a second appearance in the national tournament.
 
Graduate student captain David Drucker (Bellmore, N.Y.) and senior Justin DeLuca (Mashpee, Mass.) teamed up to go a perfect 10-0 against CCC competition – including an 8-0 ledger in the regular season. Drucker also posted a 10-0 record in singles as he sits atop the Bison all-time singles (63) and doubles (56) wins lists. DeLuca completed the CCC regular season undefeated (8-0) in singles as he went unblemished for the second-straight CCC season. The senior enters Thursday's match second in the record book for wins in a season as he has posted 18 doubles victories thus far.
 
The top doubles pair of sophomore Brandon Roode (Griswold, Conn.) and first-year Eduardo Irizarry (Lajas, Puerto Rico) has been a force since reuniting for the CCC regular season finale. In three of the four matches since, the tandem has surrendered a total of three games when they are the first team to put a point on the board – including an 8-0 victory on Sunday. Earlier in the spring, Roode and Irizarry beat the top pairing from Division I Holy Cross and Connecticut as well as regionally-ranked Hobart.
 
Roode, who spent much of the spring regionally-ranked as a singles student-athlete, clinched the championship match at Roger Williams and avenged his only conference singles setback of the season while quietly capturing the program record for doubles wins in a single season with his 19th. In the fall, he topped a semifinalist from last year's NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Singles Championship en route to a quarterfinal appearance at the uber-competitive USTA/Regional Tournament, also held at Williams College. Earlier in the week, Irizarry captured the match-ending point in the semifinals to go along with wins against Holy Cross, Connecticut, and Hobart and was the lone point in the match at nationally-ranked Amherst for an overall record of 13-0 this spring.
 
Colby-Sawyer (14-7) captured the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) crown with a 9-0 victory over Rutgers-Camden on Sunday. Both the Bison and Chargers have defeated Curry and Gordon this season while Nichols has a 3-0 lead against the other common opponents in 2012-13. The Bison topped Endicott 9-0 and Wheaton (Mass.) 6-3 while Colby-Sawyer dropped 7-2 decisions to the same two teams. Nichols also took down UMass Boston 9-0 after falling 5-2 to Connecticut in a spring break doubleheader. The Chargers were blanked by the Beacons in the fall.
 
Overall, the series is split 10-10 overall and 2-2 in the CCC tournament. Nichols, however, has claimed the last two meetings by a 9-0 decision with the last occurring at Dartmouth's Boss Center in Hanover, N.H. on March 26, 2011.
 
Senior Reeve Fidler (San Diego, Calif.) is the lone student-athlete on the roster to have faced the Bison while current Colby-Sawyer assistant coach Ben Dabush suffered a singles and doubles setback to DeLuca in 2010.
 
Coverage of this year's NCAA tournament appearance will include a daily blog by graduate student David Drucker. Check back tomorrow morning for the first installment.

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