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GAMBIER, Ohio — For the 24th time in program history, and for the first time since the 2019 season, the Kenyon College Owls will compete in the NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championship. The team’s first step into the bracket of 44 teams will take place in Saturday’s second-round action.
The Owls know they will be playing that second-round game at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, but they don’t yet know who they will be playing. Their opponent will be determined by Friday’s first-round match between Haverford College and Illinois Institute of Technology. The winner of that match will move on to play Kenyon at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The Kenyon squad, which is 18-5 overall and ranked No. 13 nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), was this year’s regular-season and tournament runner-up of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). The Owls gained entry into the NCAA Championship through an at-large berth.
Haverford brings to the national stage a team that is 15-5 overall and possesses a No. 16 national rank from the ITA. The Fords will be making their first appearance in the NCAA Championship since 1996. Haverford, like Kenyon, made its way into the bracket via an at-large berth. The Fords are led by sophomore Marko Arboleda, who is 9-7 playing in the No. 1 position. In the Centennial Conference Championship, the Fords fell to No. 8-ranked Swarthmore.
Haverford’s first-round opponent, Illinois Institute of Technology, made its way into the championship by winning the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) tournament and claiming the NACC’s automatic berth. The Scarlet Hawks have a 12-9 overall record and they are unranked by the ITA. Their top player is junior Pedro Caroa-Accino Roca, who is 10-11 playing in the Scarlet Hawks’ top spot.
Kenyon is powered, at the top of its lineup, by junior Paulo Pocasangre Kreling and sophomore Alejandro Gonzalez. Pocasangre Kreling is the team’s No. 1 and has a 19-7 singles record this season. Additionally, the ITA ranks him as the No. 16 singles player in NCAA Division III. Gonzalez maintains the No. 2 spot in the lineup, where he has posted a team-best singles record of 20-6.
Pocasangre Kreling and Gonzalez are typically paired in doubles play and they’ve produced an 11-7 record in the Owls’ No. 1 doubles spot.
If Kenyon wins its second-round match, it will remain in Cleveland and play in Sunday’s regional final match, most likely against No. 5-ranked Case Western Reserve University. The host Spartans will be playing a Saturday second-match against the winner of Friday’s first-round match between Whitman College and Ohio Northern University.
The winner of Sunday’s regional final match, which will be played at noon, will be one of eight teams to advance to the Championship’s final site, the Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont, California.
