CHICAGO, Ill. – One of the best seasons in Augustana men's tennis history ended on Saturday, May 12 with a 5-1 loss at seventh ranked Chicago. The defeat, which came in the second round of the NCAA Division III National Tournament, ended the Vikings season at 19-11. It was the first time in school history that the men's tennis team qualified as a team for the national tournament.
 
Seniors Samuel Totten (University HS, Normal, Ill.) and Eric Pohl (Fremd HS, Palatine, Ill.) put the finishing touches on their outstanding careers by winning at number one doubles. Totten and Pohl defeated Erik Kerrigan and Ninan Kumar 8-5 to finish the year with a 14-9 record. Totten and Pohl own the Augustana school record for career victories as a doubles team with 69. They finished their careers with a mark of 69-36 while playing at number one singles for all four years. The old record was 62-18 set by John Jevitz and Steve Miller from 1979-82.
 
The win by Totten and Pohl actually tied the match at 1-1. The Vikings number two doubles team of freshmen Peter Alex (Hinsdale South HS, Darien, Ill.) and Tom Friberg (Lund, Sweden) fell 8-4 to Tyler Raclin and Jeremy Yuan just prior to Totten and Pohl leaving the court. At number three doubles the Augustana duo of freshman Caio DeRezende (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and junior Jack Morkin (University HS, Bloomington, Ill.) dropped an 8-5 decision to Nicolas Chua and David Liu.
 
Morkin lost 6-1; 6-0 to Charlie Pei at number six singles, freshman Rodrigo Medeiros (Brazil) lost 6-0; 6-3 to Liu at number five and Alex fell 6-0; 6-3 to Luke Tsai at number three. That finished the match.
 
Totten's match at number one against Kerrigan saw him lose the first set 7-5 but he was ahead 1-0 in the second. DeRezende was in front 4-1 in the second set after dropping the first 6-3. Pohl trailed 2-6; 2-4 against Yuan at number four.
 
Augustana, which was ranked as high as 19^th in the NCAA Division III's Central Region during the year, qualified for the NCAA Tournament by winning the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin Tournament on May 5 with a 5-2 win over Wheaton. That gave the Vikings of head coach Jon Miedema their first CCIW title since 1985.
 
Not only did this edition of the Vikings make the first-ever NCAA appearance but they also gave the school its first ever NCAA team victory with a 5-2 win over John Carroll on Friday, May 11.