A new tennis season begins on Saturday as a record-setting 12 teams seek to earn the 15th PacWest men’s tennis title, and the coaches almost unanimously selected Azusa Pacific as the preseason favorite.
The defending champion Cougars are followed by Hawai`i Pacific, which earned the lone remaining first-place vote and then Point Loma, Concordia and Biola to round out of the top 5. Fresno Pacific, Hawai`i Hilo and Menlo make up the rest of the list of eight teams that would qualify for the conference championships at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Club on April 17-19. MSU Denver, Colorado Mesa, Westmont, and Jessup are the contenders to take one of those coveted spots in Surprise, Arizona.
Azusa Pacific is the three-time defending champion and is led once again by the tournament’s Most Valuable Player Elias Emilio Walter. After winning the ITA West Regional this fall, Walter is the player to beat in the PacWest as he looks to defend his PacWest Player of the Year award.
First-Team All-PacWest selection Miha Velicki also returns for PacWest Coach of the Year Mark Bohren as well as Soeren Grandke, who was runner-up in the fall regional.
The Cougars have a nine-match winning streak at the PacWest Championships that dates back to 2022, and they are four wins away from Hawai`i Pacific’s record from 2013-17. The Sharks finished runner-up last year and have proven already that they are going to be tough competition for the defending champions.
Hawai`i Pacific already has a 4-3 win over NCAA Division I opponent Hawai`i, coached now by six-time PacWest Coach of the Year Hendrik Bode. The Sharks are led by Jakub Beran who is in his fourth season with the Sharks and is a three-time All-PacWest selection in singles.
Point Loma has been inching closer each season to its first PacWest title, finishing in the top-5 each of the last four seasons. This year, the Sea Lions return a strong roster that includes 2023 PacWest Player of the Year Alex Leischner and Andrew Suver at the top joined by Niclas Goltz as a transfer from Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Concordia has taken fourth place at the PacWest Championships in four of the last five seasons, and the Golden Eagles are projected by the coaches to take fourth place again. Under interim head coach Mattis Le Montagner, Concordia has added a pair of transfers from Westcliff to join Spencer Cinco for his senior season to contend for another trip to the NCAA West Regional.
Biola took third place last year and is just a point behind Concordia in the preseason poll. The Eagles lost two of the best singles players in the conference but are still looking to get back to the NCAA postseason. Mexicali native Alejandro Flores Montevideo is the Eagles top returner from last year’s team that went 16-9.
Fresno Pacific is in the sixth poll spot and returns all ten players from a year ago. Hawai`i Hilo is at No. 7 under new head coach , Guilherme De Medeiros, and new PacWest member Menlo is eighth, one year after reaching the Golden State Athletic Conference finals. The Oaks have five starters returning.
Colorado affiliates MSU Denver and Colorado Mesa share the ninth spot, and both teams have most of their starters returning. Westmont is next, with two of three of their top singles players back, and newcomer Jessup rounds out the list, guided by first-year coach Joe Patton-Isaac.
The PacWest Championships will begin on April 17 with qualification and seeding determined by committee ranking. The top 8 teams will qualify for the championships with the tournament winner earning an automatic berth into the NCAA West Regional. Four teams will qualify for regionals and the two winners in the opening round will advance to nationals.
The first contest between two PacWest teams will be on Saturday when Point Loma travels to Westmont. Azusa Pacific will host Hawai`i Pacific on March 10 in a rematch of last year’s championship match. Menlo will face Colorado Mesa and MSU Denver on March 19 and 20 respectively in Fresno for what could be key battles for qualifying in the PacWest Championships.