NYU, Northeastern and Princeton Capture First Place Honors at the 2018 National Collegiate Table Ten
Perhaps the most celebrated competitions in college sports take place during what is widely known as March Madness. As the NCAA closed out its basketball conference championships in preparation for its national tournament, the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) moved toward closure of its regional championships taking place across the country in preparation for the 2018 iSET College Table Tennis National Championships to be held in Round Rock, Texas, on April 20-22. While the New York Metro region's Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden hosted the Atlantic Coast and Big Ten basketball conferences, respectively, the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville NY served as host site for the NCTTA's Northeast Regional Championships. On hand were teams and individual athletes from Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, Brown University, Columbia University, Fashion Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology New York University, Northeastern University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, SUNY Stony Brook, Tufts University, UMass at Lowell, and Yale University.
Above: Photos Courtesy Warren Rosenberg
Coming into this weekend's tournament as the reigning champions and top seed, the NYU Violets held on to their Championship title in the Women's Team competition but fell to the Huskies of Northeastern University in the combined Coed/Men's Division. Given NYU's recent strength, notably their dominance at the NYC Downtown Division Championships in February, NCTTA's NYC Downtown Division Director, Rahul Acharya, told MetroSports that most everyone was expecting NYU to win the coed title. The Huskies would have none of that and surprised everyone by notching with a 3-1 win. After the Huskies lost the first team match, Michael Wang of Northeastern beat NYU’s Wenhao Sun in an exciting 5 game match. The Huskies won the other two team matches comfortably to take home the 2018 Northeast Coed Regionals title. Finishing second behind the NYU Violets in the Women's Team division were the Bears of Brown University in second place followed by the Yale Bulldogs who took the third place trophy back to Handsome Dan in New Haven. Third place bragging rights in the Coed/Men's Division went to the team from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with Brown finishing fourth.
Above and Below: Photos Courtesy Warren Rosenberg
Below: Photos Courtesy Warren Rosenberg
NYU's freshman, Adar Alguetti brought home the first place trophy in the Men's Singles division winning a hard-fought four game match against Tinglie Wu of Northeastern University. Alguetti was victorious in all seven of his matches over the weekend, two in the Team Competition and five in the singles, defeating opponents from Northeastern, Stony Brook, Tufts and Yale. Wu can certainly hold his head high as the second place finisher having defeatid five of the six opponents he faced in the Team Competition and four of the five he faced in the Singles.
Above: Photos Courtesy Warren Rosenberg
Claiming the tournament's Women's Single Championship title was Princeton's Erica Wu who defeated Ruofei Rao from the Parsons School of Design. Wu, who didn't participate in Saturday's Team Competition, faced down four opponents on Sunday, defeating NYU's Leslie Liu and Xiaotong Sun and Brown's Yiquan XU before facing Rao in the finals. Rao, a native of New Zealand, worked her way to successful wins over opponents from Brandeis and NYU before falling to Princeton's Wu.
Above: Photos Courtesy Glen Randmer
Tournament Photos Available at http://wr-photo.com/p890025105
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