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Posted: May 12, 2023

Prairie State overcomes Lake County to win Region 4 crown

(Image courtesy of Prairie State College)
(Image courtesy of Prairie State College)

AURORA, ILL. - After a back-to-back years in second place, Prairie State College returned to the top of the Region 4 Division I Men's Tennis Tournament for the first time since 2019. The Pioneers racked up 23.5 points to finish ahead of the two-time defending champs from the College of Lake County, who tallied 18.5 points. The Lancers Billy Friedman was named the Region 4 Most Valuable Player, while PSC's Donn Gobbie earned Region 4 Coach of the Year after guiding the team to its seventh region crown.

2023 NJCAA Region 4 Division I Men's Tennis Tournament Final Results

Friedman remained perfect on the season with a straight sets 6-1, 6-3 victory over Abhinav Acharya of PSC in the Singles Flight #1 finals. The Lancers also won the Flight #6 title with a 7-5, 6-1 win by Erik Delgado over McHenry County College's Jack Coleman. Aside from Illinois Valley Community College's Zviko Bingura winning the Flight #3 bracket in a tiebreaker over PSC's Gabriel Meirelles, Prairie State College dominated the rest of the meet.

Nick Velders didn't surrender a game in two sets over Gavin Murrie (CLC) in Flight #3, Sachin Vavaraja defeated Lukas Januski (CLC) in Flight #4, and Carlos Alcala made it three titles in singles competition with two-set victory over Mike Kim (CLC) in Flight #5.

The doubles field completely belonged to the Pioneers, with championship matches all being won in straight sets. Acharya and Velder claimed Flight #1 over Friedman and Murrie (CLC), while Meirelles and Alcala won Flight #2 over Memphis Gallego and Januski (CLC) and Vavaraja combined with Nick Scroppo for the Flight #3 title against Vadim Cheli and Logan Brandner of IVCC.

The NJCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship runs May 15-19 in McKinney, Texas.

As the lone Division III program in Region 4, the College of DuPage will compete at the NJCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championships in Oxford, Georgia, from May 12-14.