Dartmouth's varsity tennis teams will not be the only ones with a shot at national recognition this spring, as the Dartmouth club tennis team has earned a bid to the United States Tennis Association's National Campus Championship this April in Surprise, Ariz.
After winning the New England Campus Championship on Saturday, the coed team earned an automatic place in the national championships, where it will square off with the likes of the University of Michigan and the defending champion University of Texas.
The team, comprised of three men and three women, will be led by James Francis '10 as it prepares for the club's nationals debut.
"It is definitely exciting, because the club has not even played in a regional before, and now we're going to the championships," singles player Maggie Bell '10 said. "It is really cool to be doing this with a club, and it will be fun to represent the program."
Brown, last year's regional winner and this year's runner up, will also compete in the championship, as the top two teams of the New England regional secure instant bids to the nationals.
To get to the regional finals this weekend, the Dartmouth squad had to get through its initial pool, where it easily handed off defeats to both the University of Vermont and Northeastern University.
Upon entry to the semi-finals, the team faced Harvard -- last year's runner up and a strong competitor.
After a well-deserved victory, the club team faced defending champion Brown in the finals.
"We beat Harvard in the semis and played extremely well, and then played Brown in the finals which was a close and tough match that basically came down to one point," Francis said. "But we had a really strong team. The women really carried us [on Saturday] -- whenever there was a girl on the court, we did extremely well."
In one-set matches where the number of games won determined the winner, Dartmouth clinched the final with a narrow 24-23 win, thanks to strong performances by Bell who won 6-2, and a mixed-doubles victory of 6-3.
As winners of the New England regional, Dartmouth also won a $1000 travel stipend, although that the prize will not cover all of the team's expenses.
"We will need to do fundraising because although the money we were awarded helps, it does not even cover three round-trip tickets to Phoenix, not including other expenses," Francis said.
But with the College already administering heavy budget cuts, including a cut of up to 15 percent in the athletic department, it will be difficult to determine where the rest of the money will come from, Michael Bush '11 said.
"There will hopefully be some funding from the College, because there is a policy of matching up to $400 for club teams, so I will meet with someone from club sports to talk about it," Bush said. "But we will probably also need to do our own fundraising."
Along with Francis and Bell, the coed team includes Bush, Michael Dimitrief '12 and women's doubles partners Jaimie Berger '11 and Jennifer Buchholz '12. Bush and Buchholz will also play mixed doubles.
Buchholtz is a member of The Dartmouth Staff.
The team, selected by Francis and Bush, is also hoping to bring extra players to Arizona if the budget provides them the opportunity. The tournament allows a maximum of 10 players to participate per team.
"We would like to bring as many people as possible, but I have no idea how it works in terms of requesting funding, because we have never done this sort of travel before," Francis said.
Budget concerns aside, the team now must also focus on gearing up for nationals, although it will be difficult to secure indoor training time as the varsity programs are given preference on time on the courts for practice.
The transition from a relatively new team to regional champions and national qualifiers has been fast paced, but the team has been aware of its potential even before this sudden exposure to the spotlight, Francis said.
"We were always confident, but we were quietly confident and we knew we would have to play really tough tennis," he said. "Obviously this will be the case even more at nationals, but the same Brown team we beat made it to the round of 16 there last year, so who knows what can happen?"
