Texas Wesleyan wins 2004 NCTTA Team Championship

CITY BEACH, Calif. - The Texas Wesleyan Table Tennis team captured the National Collegiate Table Tennis Team Championship this past weekend.

The 2004 Championships featured 16 teams from around the nation, all of which won their respective divisions.  The teams were spilt into two groups of eight teams.  Each team was to play every other team within their group. 

Texas Wesleyan, the Texas Division representative, breezed through the preliminary matches, defeating Auburn, 5-0, Boston University, 5-0, and Virginia, 5-0, on Saturday afternoon.  The squad kept it rolling on Sunday
defeating City College of San Francisco, 4-1, University of
Ilinois-Champaigne, 4-1, Pennsylvania, 4-1, and Southern Mississippi, 3-2.

Texas Wesleyan finished the preliminary round with a perfect 7-0 record to garner the No. 1 seed in Group II. In bracket play, Texas Wesleyan defeated Virginia Tech, 3-0, in the quarterfinals.  In the semifinals, the Rams would again take on Pennsylvania, and defeat them, 3-0, to advance to the finals.

Texas Wesleyan took on UCLA in the championship.  The Rams jumped to a quick 3-0 victory.  Freshman Bijana Golic defeated Vineet Argawal, 3-0. Freshman Jarad Lynch defeated William Liu, 3-1, and freshman David Wang defeated Della Noce, 3-1 to clinch the title for the Rams. "This was the first time that we competed in the NCTTA," head coach Christian Lillieroos said.  "This was definitely one of our greatest victories.  A team championship is always more special than anything individual."

Lynch and Wang finished with spotless 10-0 records in singles play during the tournament.  The duo also finished with a 1-0 and 7-0 record in doubles respectively.  Golic finished with a 6-1 record in singles play, while freshman Courtney Roberts and sophomore Eric Owens finished with identical 3-0 record in limited singles play.