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RIPON, Wis. – The 2013 Midwest Conference (MWC) Men’s Tennis Championships will play out starting Friday, April 26 and continue through the weekend at the Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wis. The team championship is set to take place on Friday while singles and doubles action will be played on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

The participants in the team tournament return three participants from a year ago as Grinnell held a perfect 4-0 mark in the South Division while newcomer Lawrence was tops in the North going 4-0 in divisional play. Grinnell will battle for the school’s tenth straight team championship and will face off against Carroll in the semifinals while Lawrence will take on Monmouth in the other semifinal match. Earlier this season Grinnell dropped Carroll 7-2 on February 10 while Lawrence defeated Monmouth 6-3 on March 23. Both semifinal matches will start at 8:30 a.m. with the championship match set to take place at 1:30 p.m. for a chance to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Carroll enters the championships looking for its first singles or doubles champion in school history while also playing for a team championship for the first time in school history. Jack Michael leads the conference across all flights with 21 wins which includes a 15-3 mark in dual matches and a 6-2 record in tournament play out of the No. 1 flight. Matt Joost (No. 6) and Ryne Fertitta (No. 3) each also have double digit wins with Joost going 11-3 and Fertitta posting an 11-8 dual match record. ¬¬Fertitta and Michael join up in the No. 1 doubles flight with ten wins while Frankie Giuffre has paired with both Joost and Kevin Rasmussen for a combined 11-6 record in the No. 2 doubles flight.

Cornell participates in the championships for the first time since the 1997 season and plays for its first singles champion since 1980 and first doubles champion since 1976. Justin Bradfield leads the Rams out of the No. 3 flight as he leads the conference with 12 in-flight wins while also picking up a perfect 3-0 record in the No. 2 flight for a 15-5 overall record. Garrett Russikoff is 8-2 in the No. 2 flight and has 13 overall wins while Joseph Gelfand plays out of the No. 4 flight with a 12-6 overall record. In doubles play Ashan DeSilva and Orion Wilkinson team up in the No. 2 flight for a 5-1 record while Justin Bradfield and Thomas Weiss have a 5-2 mark in the No. 3 flight.

A winner of the last nine team championships the Grinnell Pioneers aim for number ten in 2013 after a perfect 4-0 division mark and a league-high 20 overall wins. The Pioneers also rank second in league history with 77 combined individual championships and won two singles and two doubles championships in 2012. Tracy Johnson leads the way in 2013 with 18 overall wins including a 4-0 mark in the No. 3 flight and a 7-4 mark in the No. 5 flight while C.J. Ray earned 16 overall wins over four different flights. Elliott Czarnecki plays out of the No. 1 flight with seven in-flight wins on the season while going 6-2 in tournament play. Czarnecki also teams with Emilio Gomez in the No. 1 doubles flight for nine wins. Colin Johnson and Tracy Johnson play out of the No. 2 doubles flight where they teamed for nine wins during the season.

Illinois Col. plays for its first individual champion in school history when they travel to Madison for the singles and doubles championships. Colin Ladd has the Blueboys lone win in the No. 1 flight while teammate Josh Kuehn will play in the No. 2 flight. Anthony Samples played every match in the No. 3 flight while pairing up with both Matt Newman in the No. 2 doubles flight. Kuehn and Ladd play in the No. 1 doubles flight while the Blueboys have had six different combinations in the No. 3 flight.

Knox improved its win total to seven in the 2013 season and head to Madison in search of the first singles champion since 2005 and the first doubles champion since 1998. Walter Palmer leads the Prairie Fire with 12 overall wins and ranks second in the MWC with nine wins and a .750 win percentage in the No. 3 flight. Jonathan Ng earned four victories in the No. 2 flight while David Ham is 9-10 in the No. 4 flight to round out the top singles performers. Palmer and Karl Ruzgas team up in the No. 1 doubles flight for the second most wins in that flight in the conference (12) while Ham and Ng have picked up nine wins in the No. 2 doubles flight.

John Adams headlines a talented Lake Forest roster in the championships that aims to add to the Foresters’ 14 singles and 13 doubles championships. Adams is a two-time singles champion as he won at the No. 3 flight in 2010 and at No. 2 in 2011. Last season Adams finished runner up at the No. 2 flight but plays this season at No. 1, where he has a 13-6 record, good for second in the league. Mike Riley plays out of the No. 2 flight where he earned seven wins during the regular season while John Snider earned six wins in the No. 6 flight. Adams and Riley teamed up in the No. 1 doubles flight for a 9-7 record but have won eight of their last ten matches. Snider and Anthony Mykhaylovskyy compiled an 8-5 overall record in the No. 3 flight during the regular season.

Lawrence is in search of its first team championship since 1968 as they are one of the four teams playing for a shot at the MWC automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament after rolling to a perfect 4-0 record in MWC North Division play. Individually the Vikings play for their first singles or doubles champion since the 2008 season and return 2012 runner-up Craig Sherwood. Sherwood lost in the finals a year ago in the No. 5 flight and this year will be playing in the No. 4 flight where he is 10-6 on the season and has won his last seven dual matches. Jason Dunn anchors the No. 2 singles flight with 12 wins which is the most of any player in that flight. Jeremy Andereck also has 13 wins overall and plays out of the No. 6 flight where he is 11-5. Dunn and Max Zlevor team up in the No. 1 doubles flight for a 12-5 record with Sherwood and Brian DeCorte notching a 10-5 record in the No. 3 flight.

Monmouth returns a pair of 2012 finalists this season in David Johnson and David Stewart with Johnson winning a championship in 2012 in the No. 2 singles flight while Stewart was runner-up in the No. 3 flight. Johnson has played in both the No. 1 and 2 flights where he has combined for an 11-6 record while Stewart has shared time between the No. 2 and 3 flights with a 12-5 combined mark, winning his last seven dual matches. Marco Franco played primarily out of the No. 4 flight with an 8-6 record while Andrew Shiakallis earned four wins in the No. 6 flight. Johnson and Stewart also team up as one of the best doubles pairs in the conference with a 14-3 mark in the No. 1 flight. Chris Franco and Marco Franco are equally as good in the No. 2 flight with a 13-3 mark to round out a formidable doubles roster. The Scots also are playing for a MWC Championship as they qualified for the team tournament after a nine win regular season.

With 125 individual championships Ripon holds the all-time conference lead but hasn’t had a champion crowned since Paul Vanden Boogaard and Dave Czarnecki won the No. 1 doubles title in 2005. Eric Seiler has a team-high seven wins out of the No. 1 flight while Connor Greenwald will play for a gold medal out of the No. 2 flight with five wins. Greenwald and Seiler pair up in the No. 1 doubles flight for an 11-6 record that ranks third in terms of win percentage in the MWC while winning four of their last six matches. Brian Schumacher and Ryan Slowinski team up in the No. 2 flight with six wins while both combining for seven wins in singles play.

St. Norbert missed out on the team championship for the first time in ten years as they now turn the focus to the singles and doubles tournaments on Saturday and Sunday. Nate Gosz finished runner-up in the No. 6 singles flight in 2012 and went 7-4 in dual matches in the flight with eight overall wins. Travis Buechel leads the team with ten wins that are spread over four flights including a 3-2 mark in the No. 4 flight and a 5-3 record in the No. 5 flight. Buechel and Gosz are teamed together in the No. 3 doubles flight with an 9-4 record which is the second most wins in the conference for that flight. Nick Acosta and Tim Hartwich contend in the No. 1 doubles flight after winning five matches during the regular season.

For all information on the 2013 MWC Men's Tennis Championships visit the [championships page] and to purchase championships apparel please visit the [MWC online store].