Aggies Garner Postseason Honors after Successful Season

COLLEGE STATION – Postseason honors continue to roll in for the SEC Tournament Champion Texas A&M Men's Tennis team. The Aggies finished the season at 25-7 overall and 10-2 in SEC play advancing to the second round of the NCAA Championship.

The Aggies are No. 10 in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) team rankings, released earlier this week. The maroon and white tallied an impressive 18 victories over teams ranked in the final ITA poll, including a nine over teams in the final top-25. A&M reached the NCAA tournament for the 21st season in a row, 22nd overall appearance.

The Aggies' 10 conference wins this year were a program-best, eclipsing the tally of the 2001 and 2004 teams, while the 25 dual victories marked the third time a Texas A&M-coached Steve Denton squad has eclipsed the 20-win mark. The SEC Coach of the Year nod for Denton was the third league honor in his time in College Station after being named Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2009 and 2011.

The Southeastern Conference placed seven teams in the final Top 25: Georgia (9), Texas A&M (10), Kentucky (12), Florida (15), Tennessee (18), Mississippi State (19) and Vanderbilt (20). Alabama and Alabama occupy the Nos. 34-35 spots, respectively, while Auburn (44) and LSU (46) complete the SEC contingent in the top-50.

The Aggie women's team is No. 9 in the final rankings, and A&M joins Georgia, North Carolina, UCLA and Virginia as the only teams in the nation to have both their men's and women's tennis programs in the top-10 in the final rankings.

Individually, the trio of Junior Ore, Jackson Withrow and Shane Vinsant earned ITA All-American status. Ore and Withrow earned All-American honors for the second consecutive season after claiming a top-8 doubles seed in the NCAA Doubles Championship. Vinsant earned the title after advancing the NCAA Round of 16 in the Singles Championship.

The final ITA Singles and Doubles rankings were published this week and were littered with Aggies. Three Aggies; Harrison Adams (21), Vinsant (26) and Jeremy Efferding (71) found themselves on the final singles listing. Impressively, all three A&M doubles teams were among the ranked duos in the final poll. All-Americans Ore and Withrow led the way at No. 7, Adams and Vinsant at No. 63 and Efferding and Jordan Szabo at No. 85.

Vinsant finished the regular-season on a 12-match winning streak in singles play and went undefeated at 8-0 in SEC matches. The Keller, Texas native completed his season-long rise in the ITA rankings at No. 26 after garnering MVP and SEC-All Tournament team honors for his undefeated play in Nashville. Vinsant earned All-SEC recognition this year.

Adams, who played the No. 1 line for the Aggies, went 5-2 in SEC matches this spring and 14-8 in dual matches. The New Braunfels, Texas native rang up a team-leading nine wins against ranked opponents this spring. Adams garnered All-SEC First Team honors this season.

Efferding went an impressive 7-1 against league opponents this season to earn All-SEC second team honors. The junior led the team lead with 20 dual wins this spring in singles competition. The Boca Raton, Fla. native teamed with Szabo to finish 18-4 in doubles matches and 7-1 in SEC action.

Stay tuned to AggieAthletics.com and follow @AggieMTEN on Twitter to stay up to date on all information regarding Texas A&M men's tennis.

 

Final ITA Top-25 Rankings

Rank	Avg	School	Previous Week
1	90.13	University of Southern California	1
2	84.77	University of Oklahoma	2
3	82.57	UCLA	5
4	79.20	University of Virginia	4
5	78.22	Ohio State University	3
6	75.03	Baylor University	6
7	64.22	North Carolina	7
8	62.89	University of Texas	9
9	58.32	University of Georgia	8
10	57.32	Texas A&M University	10
11	55.33	University of Illinois	12
12	54.02	University of Kentucky	13
13	53.82	University of Notre Dame	14
14	52.84	Duke University	11
15	51.05	University of Florida	15
16	43.00	California	17
17	42.50	Columbia University	16
18	41.07	University of Tennessee	20
19	37.53	Mississippi State University	18
20	36.54	Vanderbilt University	19
21	35.22	University of Memphis	22
22	34.95	Clemson University	21
23	32.98	University of South Florida	24
24	31.27	Penn State University	23
25	30.22	Oklahoma State University	29

For the complete final team rankings, go to itatennis.com.

 

2014 ITA All-Americans

Player	School	S/D
Becker O'Shaughnessey	Alabama	D
Daniil Proskura	Alabama	D
Julian Lenz	Baylor	S
Patrick Pradella	Baylor	S
Gregory Bayane	California	D
Chase Melton	California	D
Ben McLachlan	California	S
Hunter Harrington	Clemson	D
Dominique Maden	Clemson	D
Winston Lin	Columbia	S
Florent Diep	Florida	S
Ben Wagland	Georgia	D
Hernus Pieters	Georgia	D
Nathan Pasha	Georgia	S
Denis Nguyen	Harvard	S
Tim Kopinski	Illinois	D
Ross Guignon	Illinois	D
Jared Hiltzik	Illinois	S
Farris Gosea	Illinois	S
Tom Jomby	Kentucky	S
Leandro Toledo	Minnesota	S
Brayden Schnur	North Carolina	S
Kevin Metka	Ohio State	D
Peter Kobelt	Ohio State	S/D
Guillermo Alcorta	Oklahoma	S
Axel Alvarez Llamas	Oklahoma	S
Dane Webb	Oklahoma	S
Arjun Kadhe	Oklahoma State	D
Jakob Sude	Oklahoma State	D
Nik Scholtz	Ole Miss	S
Francis Alcantara	Pepperdine	D
Alex Sarkissian	Pepperdine	S/D
Andrew Adams	South Carolina	S
Roberto Cid	South Florida	S
Mikelis Libietis	Tennessee	D
Hunter Reese	Tennessee	D
Lloyd Glasspool	Texas	D
Søren Hess-Olesen	Texas	S/D
Junior Ore	Texas A&M	D
Jackson Withrow	Texas A&M	D
Shane Vinsant	Texas A&M	S
Clay Thompson	UCLA	S
Marcos Giron	UCLA	S
Mackenzie McDonald	UCLA	S
Yannick Hanfmann	USC	S/D
Ray Sarmiento	USC	S/D
Ryan Lipman	Vanderbilt	S/D
Gonzales Austin	Vanderbilt	S/D
Mitchell Frank	Virginia	S
Alex Domijan	Virginia	S

A player must meet any of the following criteria to earn ITA All-America honors:
Singles - Top 16 seed in NCAA Singles Championship; reach round of 16 in NCAA Singles Championship; finish in the Top 20 of final ITA National Singles Rankings
 
Doubles - Top eight seed in NCAA Doubles Championship; reach quarterfinals in NCAA Doubles Championship; finish in the Top 10 of final ITA National Doubles Rankings 

To view the entire listing of the 2014 ITA All-Americans from all divisions as well as former ITA All-Americans, please click here.