ROUND ROCK, TX: The Texas Wesleyan University table tennis team claimed both the Coed Team and Women's Team titles at the
2016 TMS College Table Tennis National Championships on Easter Sunday. One year after taking only the men's singles title, the Rams took four of the six titles decided at Round Rock Sports Center.
Texas Wesleyan has now won the Coed Team National Championship 12 times in the last 13 years. The Lady Rams claimed their sixth championship. Titles in men and women's doubles pushed the program's total to 60 total championships since its inception in 2002.
Last year Mississippi College survived a championship point before knocking off the Rams and ending their streak of 11 consecutive Coed National Championships. This year, the Rams defeated UCLA, Northwestern, and McMaster in group play and then rolled through matches against Toronto and Ohlone College en route to a heavyweight rematch with the Choctaws. Mississippi meanwhile knocked off Cal and the University of Texas to uphold their end of the bargain.
The battle lived up to the billing once again. The Choctaws took the first singles match, but
Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos answered with a win to level the match 1-1. Again the Choctaws pushed ahead 2-1, but
Zhe Feng defeated Qingwei Sun to tie the contest 2-2 and send the bout to a decisive doubles match.
That left Head Coach
Jasna Rather with a decision to make. On Friday, Ventura Dos Anjos and
Shuai Wang won the men's doubles national championship, while
Jishan Liang and
Emil Santos were the top rated duo in that competition. Rather chose to go with the hot hand in
Zhe Feng (fresh off a big singles win) paired with
Jishan Liang (the top-rated singles player).
Feng and Liang faced off with Tong Zhang and his teammate Cheng Li. Zhang and Li had the early momentum with a 10-7 lead in the first set, but Feng, a former Chinese National Team member got hot and the Rams rattled off five straight points to win 12-10. The next two games were hard fought, but Feng and Liang rolled to the title with wins of 11-6 and 11-9.
The women's team event was a nail-biter as well. The Rams defeated UCLA, Iowa, and FIT in group play, then took a 3-1 win over Harvard and a 3-2 win over NYU to reach the final of the championship bracket. Meanwhile third seeded University of Wisconsin defeated Toronto 3-2 and Western 3-0.
Again the four singles matches left the teams all square at 2-2. The Lady Rams rolled out
Anastasia Rybka and
Edina Haracic, who won the women's doubles title on Friday, and the combo came through once again giving the Rams a 3-2 win.
The Rams were back to their dominant ways in this year's competition. Texas Wesleyan won the Coed Team, Women's Team, Men's Doubles, and Women's Doubles competition while they were the runner-up in women's singles and had a semifinalist in men's singles.
2016 TMS College Table Tennis National Champions
Coed Team: Texas Wesleyan (
Aleksandar Aleksandric, Hafidh Alghussein, Zhe Feng, Nikola Jovicic, Jishan Liang, Jason Plog, Emil Santos, Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos, Shuai Wang, Zhaoyu Wu - Coaches: Jasna Rather, Keith Evans, Mark Hazinski, Sasa Drinic)Women's Team: Texas Wesleyan (Triana Raquel Arellano, Keiohna Evans, Edina Haracic, Sachiko Jayarante, Caroline Kajihara, Anastasia Rybka, Darya Servatyuk - Coaches: Jasna Rather, Keith Evans, Mark Hazinski, Sasa Drinic)Men's Singles: Yichi Zhang (Mississippi College)
Women's Singles: Ting Wang (Ohlone College)
Men's Doubles: Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos/Shuai Wang (Texas Wesleyan)Women's Doubles: Anastasia Rybka/Edina Haracic (Texas Wesleyan) Ramblings
- Title Breakdown: The Rams have won 12 Coed Team Titles, 6 Women's Team Titles, 10 Men's Singles Titles (the last by
Zhe Feng in 2015), 7 Women's Singles Titles (the last by Sara Hazinski in 2011), 9 Men's Doubles Titles, 8 Women's Doubles Titles, and 8 Mixed Doubles Titles.
- Texas Table Tennis: This year's competition featured five teams from the State of Texas in Texas Wesleyan, Texas A&M, the University of Texas, North Texas, and UT-Dallas.
