So far some of the top club teams in the country have won their respective Section Campus Championships. Here's a look at some...
The Northern Campus Championships took place February 3rd-4th in St. Peter, MN. In a field of 7 teams, defending champion Minnesota had 3 teams, and Gustavus 2. In pool play on Saturday, Minnesota Maroon and Wisconsin-Stout swept through pool play. On Sunday, first place teams played second place teams in the semi-finals as UW-Stout won a close match against Minnesota Gold 25-24, and Minnesota Maroon beat Gustavus Gold 25-16. In the final, Minnesota pulled out a 27-11 victory to win their second consecutive Campus Championship.
In Missouri Valley on February 17th-18th, St. Louis University started out the tournament in the same flight as defending champion Iowa State. However, that didn't deter them, as beat them 17-9 in the opening match. They pulled out their 2 remaining matches to make it into the Gold Round. Also advancing from flight play included Nebraska-Lincoln, who beat Iowa State #2 18-13 in flight play, Washington University, and Drake University. In the Gold Semifinals, Nebraska-Lincoln defeated Washington 26-19, and St. Louis won by the same score against Drake. The final couldn't get any tighter with the final being decided by a SuperTiebreaker. St. Louis hung on to win 24-23 and became the 3rd different Missouri Valley Champion in as many years. St. Louis and Drake will represent Missouri Valley at the USTA Campus Championships.
Cornell won their second consecutive Eastern Campus Championships on February 17th-18th in Schenectady, NY. Rutgers, Columbia and Syracuse joined them, but Cornell A and B teams both went undefated in round robin play to advance to the final Cornell will receive an automatic bid to the USTA Campus Championship.
During the same weekend in Florida, teams came together to play in the Florida Campus Championships. Florida A beat FIU in the quarters, South Florida in the semi's, and Central Florida in the finals to take home the title. "This gives us an automatic entry into Nationals in April so we are pretty excited," says Florida captain Ryan Propis.
There are more Section Championships to come with top teams vying for an automatic bid to Nationals.
