NCAC 20th Anniversary

Edited: 5/26/04

KENYON'S HERRICK, DENISON'S GERLACH HEAD
20TH ANNIVERSARY MEN'S AND WOMEN’S TENNIS TEAMS

CLEVELAND -- Kenyon’s Mike Herrick and Denison’s Lauren Gerlach head an impressive list of stellar athletes named to the North Coast Athletic Conference’s 20th Anniversary men’s and women’s tennis teams. Herrick and Gerlach are two members of the squads still actively competing.

Herrick, a junior for the Lords who plays first and second singles, is already a two-time, first-team All-NCAC selection, and was the conference’s Newcomer of the Year in 2002.

Gerlach, a senior who is ranked at first singles and first doubles this season in the NCAC, is also a two-time, first team All-NCAC choice. As a freshman in 2001, she was named both Newcomer and Player of the Year.

Nilesh Saldanha of Wooster and Emily Figel of Wittenberg are other currently active players who were voted onto the team. Saldanha, a senior, is a three-time, first team All-NCAC choice and was the men’s Newcomer of the Year in 2001. Figel, a junior, is a two-time first team selection and was the women’s Newcomer of the Year in 2002.

The remainder of the men’s squad features four-time first teamer and three-time NCAC Player of the Year Lee Hays of Denison. He was first team All-NCAC from 1996-99, NCAC Newcomer of the Year in 1996, and was Player of the Year from 1997-99. Three other four-time all-conference players were chosen: Casey Clagett and Bryan Heft of Wittenberg, and Cole Newman of Denison. Three standouts from the early 1990s were also selected: Wooster’s Warren Cham-A-Koon, the player of the year in 1995, Oberlin’s Carl Erickson, the player of the year in 1994, and Kenyon’s Ed Peterson.

Cham-A-Koon, Erickson and Hays were also selected to the all-decade team as doubles players. Their partners were James Weaver, Ousmane Diop and Jeremy Edesses, respectively.

Denison, Kenyon and Wooster are the only men’s tennis teams to have won NCAC team titles in the past ten years. Denison has won six in that span, 11 overall, Kenyon has won three, including the past two, and Wooster took the crown in 1996.

The remainder of the women’s squad features six four-time all-NCAC honorees. Kenyon’s Caryn Cuthbert was a four-time first team all-conference choice from 1997-2000 and was Player of the Year three of those years and Newcomer of the Year in 1997. The Ladies’ Erin Hockman, Brooke Roeper and Ali St. Vincent are each four-time, first-team All-NCAC selections, and all were named Newcomer of the Year as a freshman and Player of the Year once. Anna-Britt Mahler of Ohio Wesleyan and Bethany Pribilla of Oberlin were both three-time first team selections and four-time all-conference honorees. Two standouts from the early 1990s round out the squad: Ohio Wesleyan’s Kristen Sherrill, who was a first-team selection and Player of the Year from 1994-96 and Kenyon’s Tegan Tindall, a first-team honoree the same seasons.

Doubles teams that were voted to the Second Decade team were Kenyon’s Cuthbert and Hockman, Denison’s Gerlach and Alison Hughes and Ohio Wesleyan’s Sherrill and Shelly Smart.

Denison and Kenyon are the only women’s tennis teams to have won NCAC team titles in the past 10 years. Kenyon has won seven in the span and 15 overall. Denison claimed the other three, including each of the past two.

The North Coast Athletic Conference will be announcing 20th Anniversary teams in all 22 sports during the 2003-04 academic year. The NCAC was founded in 1983 and began competition in the fall of 1984. The North Coast’s commitment to equity, its broad base of athletic programs and an unwavering insistence on excellence in academics has served as a model for conferences throughout the country.

The NCAC’s 20th Anniversary teams were selected in each sport through balloting by present and former coaches and administrators. Athletes who participated in conference competition between the fall of 1993 through the spring of 2003 were eligible for selection.