Kentucky Wesleyan College will be the site of the 2018 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men's and Women's Tennis Tournament. Matches for both genders will start Friday with the semifinals. Saturday is championship day as both the men's and women's tournament champions will be crowned.
A breakdown of each tournament appears below.
WOMEN
The Charger women (12-4, 7-0 G-MAC) enjoyed a great season in the G-MAC, going undefeated in conference play with a 7-0 record. Hillsdale enters the postseason on a school-record 10-match winning streak and is ranked sixth in the Midwest Region and 47th in NCAA Division II. Hillsdale is the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament and will face fourth-seeded Findlay in the first semifinal at 9:30 a.m. Central (10:30 a.m. Eastern) at the Owensboro Tennis Complex. No. 2 seed Walsh takes on No. 3 seed Davis & Elkins in the other semifinal.
The championship match is scheduled for 10 a.m. Central (11 a.m. Eastern) on Saturday.
Friday's semifinal represents the second straight matchup between the Chargers and Oilers. Hillsdale clinched the G-MAC regular season title with an 8-1 win over Findlay last Sunday, but beating the same team in back-to-back games is always a challenge.
Five of Hillsdale's seven conference wins were by 9-0 scores and very few individual matches required a third set. During the regular season, nine individual matches are played between two competing teams before a final score is reached, but those rules get slightly tweaked in tournament play. In the postseason, when one team mathematically clinches a win over another, whether it be 5-0, 6-1 or another score, the match ends. The only way a tournament match will play out all nine matchups is if the final score is 5-4.
Hillsdale's only other conference championship came in 1983, when it won the GLIAC.
Five different players - Katie Bell, Madeline Bissett, Kamryn Matthews, Hannah Cimpeanu and Halle Hyman - have won 20 or more matches this season. Hyman, Bell and Cimpeanu have all earned G-MAC Player of the Week honors during this most memorable season for the program.
MEN
Like the women's team, the Charger men completed an undefeated G-MAC regular season schedule, going 8-0 in conference matches and are 12-6 overall heading into the postseason.
Hillsdale is the No. 1 seed going into this weekend's G-MAC Tournament, and will take on 4th-seeded Davis & Elkins in Friday's semifinal. Findlay and Walsh square off in the other semifinal, with the championship match scheduled for 3:00 Saturday afternoon.
All G-MAC Tournament matches will be played at the Owensboro Tennis Center in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The 2017-18 season has been by far the best in the history of men's tennis at Hillsdale College. It's the first conference regular season championship won in program history and its 12 wins are second-most in a season, only trailing the 17 won by the 1982-83 team. The Chargers' .750 winning percentage is its highest in a season in school history.
Hillsdale enters postseason play having won eight in a row, with most of those wins coming in dominating fashion. The Chargers won five of their eight G-MAC matches by 9-0 scores, including each of the last three in a row.
Naturally, a season like this means the players individually racked up some impressive records and accolades. Sophomore Charlie Adams was named G-MAC Player of the Week three times, a number matched by Milan Mirkovic. Adams and doubles partner Justin Hyman are 13-4 this year and have been ranked in the top 40 in the nation during the regular season. Hillsdale has been particularly dominaint in doubles play, with six different players winning 11 or more doubles matches throughout the season.
A tournament championship would be a first in program history.