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NCTTA
Newsletter With the 2011 Championships recently concluded, we've got the rundown on all the winners, some interesting profiles from the big event, plus find out which cities are interested in hosting the 2012 Championships. Read on for all this and more ... College Table Tennis Enjoys Growth Spurt Collegiate table tennis is booming in North America. Trends show that’s the case and so does the stepped up competition at the 2011 National Championships in Minnesota. One solid chunk of NCTTA turf is Eastern Canada. The region qualified four powerful top 15-ranked teams to the Championships in Rochester: the University of Ottawa, Toronto, Western Ontario and Waterloo. “Eastern Canada is developing into one of our strongest divisions,” says NCTTA President Willy Leparulo. While our friends in the land of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and incredibly snowy winters are hot and rising to the top, let’s not forget perennial powerhouse Texas Wesleyan. The TWU Rams captured the coed and women’s team titles yet again in Rochester in mid-April, but the collegians from Fort Worth battled every inch of the way to get it done. Just ask TWU coach Jasna Rather, who recently returned home to the Fort Worth campus after seeing the action up-close in Minnesota. “Competition at the Nationals is stronger every year, and we always try to recruit better players to compete for top places,” she said. Bringing new and talented players to TWU is a must for the Rams to stay on top. There’s “a thin line between many teams,” Jasna noted of the rising competition on college campuses. Texas Wesleyan Reigns at 2011 Championships Despite one of the strongest Championships fields in recent memory, there was a very familiar name atop the podium in Minnesota. Texas Wesleyan proved they were just that edge better than the rest to take the 2011 Men's/Coed Team and Women's Team titles. Which is not to say they weren't tested. Their men's/coed team was pushed the distance by Ottawa in the semifinals and Lindenwood in the finals. Both team contests came down to doubles. On the women's side Texas Wesleyan defeated Lindenwood 3-1 in the final. Here are the final team standings:
In the singles competition Sara Hazinski (Texas Wesleyan) repeated as Women's Singles Chanmpion, but Yanjun Gao (LaGuardia College) failed to do the same, exiting in the semifnals to Pierre-Luc Hinse (Ottawa). Instead Mark Hazinski, Sara's husband and teammate overcame Pierre-Luc Hinse in a thrilling 7-game match to take the title. Here's the complete list of singles and doubles winners:
Check out the full set of Championships results, including draws, stories and news articles at the 2011 Championships website. Championships Sponsors Help Make a Greate Event
And last, but certainly not least is America's Team Table Tennis Championship. If you haven't heard about it, it's fantastic 4-starteam-based table tennistournament taking place in Rockford, Illinois from May 28-29, 2011. Excellent playing conditions, great teamformat with a lot of matches, should attract a lot of good players as well. Register online by Friday May 20 if you're interested in participating. Miss. College Player Wins Preaching Award Mississippi College junior Ben VanHorn, who’s passionate about the game of table tennis, also can get fired up when delivering a sermon on the Clinton campus. The 21-year-old Christian Studies major received the Byrd Memorial Preaching Award at his Baptist-affiliated school in late March. The honor also comes with an $800 stipend to help with textbooks or other costs at Mississippi’s largest private university. After receiving the honor on March 22, with hundreds of MC students looking on at First Baptist Church Clinton, VanHorn preached one of his best sermons. His message touched on the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Clinton resident who’s a graduate of Clinton High, VanHorn is the only American-born player on a nationally ranked Mississippi College table tennis team dominated by natives of China. Ben made his first trip to the College Table Tennis Championships in April. Following in his father’s footsteps, Ben plans to attend New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary after earning his MC bachelor’s degree in 2012. His father, Dr. Wayne VanHorn, is the dean of the MC School of Christian Studies and the Arts, and a former Baptist preacher at First Baptist Church in Columbia, Mississippi. The VanHorns are often seen cheering on the MC Choctaws at NCTTA Dixie Division tournaments and each Thanksgiving, invite Mississippi College’s Chinese table tennis players to feast and celebrate friendships between the USA and China. Governors Who? Does Governors State, a small Illinois liberal arts college who qualified for their first NCTTA Championship this year, dare to dream of being the next Lindenwood University, let alone Texas Wesleyan? GSU’s Executive Vice President Dr. Gebe Ejigu dares. He smiles broadly when asked if his school can challenge at the very highest levels. “Table tennis was our first sports program. Its rapid success has come from an exchange program that brings Chinese students for eighteen to twenty-four months in pursuit of a Master’s degree. The program has been in place for six years, but only recently we realized that we should look for students who are not just academically suitable, but talented table tennis players as well.” Wait. A college whose first sports program was not football, not basketball, but table tennis? And prospective graduate students are vetted according to their table tennis prowess? Championships Reunites Old Friends Nancy Chen, computer science major from Harvard and also NCTTA Media Relations Committee member, returned home to Minnesota to play in the 2011 NCTTA National Championships. And ran into some old friends from her home state in the process. Chen, you see, grew up in Minneapolis, MN about an hour away from Rochester, the site of this year’s championships. So it’s not surprising that the faces of several of the local players were pretty familiar. Take Anh Ngo, a student from Saint Mary’s University, who competed in the singles competition. “We grew up playing at the same table tennis club together,” says Chen. Meeting through the sport, they soon became friendly rivals as well as close friends. So when Ngo was matched up against Shimon Kolkowitz, one of Chen’s teammates, Chen said “I didn’t know who to cheer for!” With a fellow Harvard teammate pitted against a childhood friend, Chen ended up cheering for both sides of an intense match. Ngo bested Kolkowitz in a 3-1 win. Chen was just happy to see both of her friends play. And relieved to move on to other matches where it's easier to pick a side.UF Gators Chew Up Florida Foes Florida Gators always have lots of swagger when it comes to football or basketball in the Southeastern Conference. A Sweet 16 team in NCAA hoops this year, and a winner over Penn State in a football bowl a few months back, the Gators always bring it. That’s true with the UF table tennis team, too. The Gators chewed up foes like Florida State, South Florida, North Florida and Daytona State in division competition in Orlando this spring, qualifying for their first trip to the NCTTA Championships since 2007. Seeded 18th overall, the team finished in 16th place at the 2011 Championships in Minnesota. Top players for the diverse Gator team includes Yang Li, a graduate student who played the sport at Ren Min University of China. Dashiel Neimark, a Chicago native, and Nam Ngyuen of Vietnam finished with perfect 5-0 marks in regional play at UCF. Five of the six Florida players are playing in their first NCTTA season. Players who are newcomers include Nikita Ladyzhensky, a Floridian whose parents are both Russian. Kyle Moyant, the president of the UF team, is the player with prior college table tennis experience. With many of the players coming back next season, Moyant is sure the Gators will be strong again next fall and spring. “The Gators have paved their way to a new dynasty in the Florida region for years to come,” he says.Two Cities Bid to Host 2012 Championships After 4 years in the upper Midwest, the Championships seem poised to return to a warmer climate in 2012. While we don’t know yet which city will earn the right to host the event, two cities have put in bids: New Orleans, Louisiana and Plano, Texas. Plano is located just north of Dallas, Texas with a population just shy of 300,000. Noted as one of the best places to live in the Western US by CNN’s Money magazine, Plano is no stranger to elite athletic competition either. The city is home to the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy which trained the 2004 and 2008 Olympic All-Around Champions, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin. The proposed competition venue is the Plano Sport Authority, featuring fourteen basketball courts encompassing 80,000 square feet of competition space. Head about 500 miles east and you’ll get to the second city vying for the 2012 Championships. Nicknamed “The Big Easy” for its preponderance of speakeasies in the days of prohibition, New Orleans is well known for its big celebrations like Mardi Gras and the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival. The city is also a popular choice for big sporting events, having hosted the Super Bowl a record six times, and will host the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four in 2012. The venue for the 2012 Collegiate Championships would be the Heath Club by Hilton which is located right on the Mississippi River and directly attached to the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel. Here’s your chance to weigh in on the 2012 Championships bids. Head over to the NCTTA Forum to review the proposed bids and ask questions or post comments. Better hurry, because the question and answer period ends May 2.Got an idea for a future story or newsletter topic? Email the NCTTA Media Relations Chair. |
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| NCTTA
Newsletter - April 2011 Our mailing address is: NCTTA 2322 5th Street #204 Santa Monica, CA 90405 Our website: www.nctta.org Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/collegett Copyright (C) 2011 National Collegiate Table Tennis Association. All rights reserved. |
