Ball State University Athletics
Men's Tennis Begins Spring Season Sunday
January 12, 2012 | Men's Tennis
2011 Mid-American Conference Tournament Champions
Ball State vs. Northwestern/Ilinois: The Cardinals face back-to-back Big Ten opponents on the road starting with its competition at Northwestern Sunday at 3 p.m. EST. This marks the third straight season Ball State has opened its spring play at Northwestern. Ball State will then travel to Illinois Friday, January 20 to face the Fighting Illini at 7 p.m.
About the Cardinals: Ball State welcomes back 10 letterwinners from last year's squad including junior Dalton Albertin who was named First Team All-MAC for the first time in his career and was also named to the All-MAC Tournament team in 2010. Senior Cliff Morrison garnered Second Team All-MAC honors for the third straight season. Morrison also received The Most Outstanding Player of the MAC Tournament Award along with being voted to the All-MAC Tournament team for the 2011 season along with teammate junior Austin Sansone.
2010-11 Recap: Ball State has now won 19 regular season championships and 17 tournament titles in program history, including 16-undefeated MAC seasons. Ball State has participated in the MAC for the last 37 years. The Cardinals have played in seven NCAA tournaments, five of those were as MAC Tournament champions. The legacy began in 1984 after the Cardinals posted a 19-5 overall record and an 8-0 stint in league play. Since the MAC tournament format started in 1997, the Cardinals have won the league tournament six times (1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2011).
Richards Hires Former Player Jared Epkey As Graduate Assistant: Epkey earned his bachelor's degree from Ball State in May 2008. He transferred from Southern Indiana at the conclusion of his freshman year to play tennis for Richards at Ball State as a sophomore ( 2006) and as a junior (2007). He was unable to compete in the dual match play as a senior (2008) due to a back injury. Epkey along with teammate and brother, Tony managed a 25-8 doubles mark while going undefeated in the Mid-American Conference (5-0) in 2005-06. Epkey also garnered MAC Player of the Week honors in April of 2006 after being an integral part of the Cardinals claiming their 19th Mid-American Conference regular season title after going undefeated in both singles and doubles against Northern Illinois.
Quote From Head Coach Bill Richards: Playing two Big Ten teams on the road is definitely a challenging way to start the dual match season. It puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on our players to be disciplined and self-motivated when we have not been able to practice as a team for the past five weeks. We definitely hit the ground running. At the same time we are excited to play excellent teams that will help to show us where we stack up here early in the year. It will give me a good idea of who worked hard and who didn't over break.
