No. 13 Men's Tennis vs. Clark
NEWMAC Tournament Semifinal
Friday, April 25 | 3 p.m. 
Babson Tennis Courts | Babson Park, Mass. 

SERIES HISTORY
•    Babson is 34-2 all-time against Clark dating back to 1996.
•    The Beavers have won 15 consecutive matches against the Cougars since 2013 and have not dropped a point in any of the last six contests between the teams. 

POSTSEASON HISTORY
•    Babson and Clark will meet for the 10th time in the NEWMAC Tournament the first time since 2015 in the conference playoffs on Friday afternoon.
•    The Beavers are 7-2 versus the Cougars in NEWMAC Tournament play, which includes three straight semifinal victories from 2013-15. 
•    Clark's last postseason win over the Green and White was a 4-3 victory in the 2006 conference quarterfinals. 

LAST MEETING
•    Seniors Brady Anderson and Ole Lepsoe, junior Alexander Weber, sophomore Mattias Harrell and first-year Sebastian Mendoza all recorded victories in both singles and doubles as Babson defeated Clark, 7-0, on October 18, 2024, in Worcester, Mass. 
•    The Beavers cruised through doubles and claimed all six singles matches in straight sets, which included a 6-4, 6-2 triumph by first-year Edward Wang over the Cougars' E Shepherd-Johnson at number one. 

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
•    Top-seeded and 13th-ranked Babson (18-2) has won seven consecutive matches and is coming off a 5-2 victory at Springfield last Saturday. 
•    Anderson, Wang, Mendoza and junior Alexander Merson all won in both singles and doubles for the Beavers, who dropped just two games across the three doubles matches to finish league play unbeaten for the second time in the last three years. 
•    Wang is 20-4 in all matches and 4-1 against league foes, Mendoza is 16-7 overall and 13-3 in dual-match play, Merson (14-5) boasts a 10-match winning streak and Anderson is 11-11 overall and 9-6 at number one and two singles. 
•    Lepsoe and Merson (9-2) have won five straight matches at number one doubles, Anderson and Mendoza have won five in a row to improve to 9-2 at number two and the duo of Wang and senior Wesley Zhang are 6-4 at number three this spring. 

SCOUTING THE COUGARS
•    Fourth-seeded Clark (8-10) advanced to the NEWMAC semifinals for the second consecutive season after defeating fifth-seeded Wheaton 4-0 on Wednesday afternoon. 
•    Ryan Hovey, Graham Russo and Aris Kirkorian followed up their victories in doubles by recording straight-set triumphs in singles for the Cougars, who have now won three consecutive matches. 
•    Clark suffered a 5-0 loss to MIT in last year's NEWMAC semifinals and is seeking its first trip to the conference final since 2012. 

BEAVERS IN THE POSTSEASON
•    Babson has advanced the semifinal round in every NEWMAC Tournament going back to 2011 and has reached the conference final 10 times in 11 tries during this stretch. 
•    The Beavers claimed their first conference tournament title since 1996 and first NEWMAC championship with a 5-3 win over Coast Guard in the pandemic-shortened 2021 campaign. 

ANDERSON, MENDOZA CLAIM CONFERENCE RECOGNITION
•    Babson's No. 2 doubles pairing was selected as the NEWMAC Doubles Team of the Week after going 3-0 to close out the regular season. 
•    Anderson and Mendoza topped Pierce Garbett and Aidan Wang-Fan of Brandeis 6-3, beat Alex Colon and Shunsuke Higuchi of Salve Regina 6-0 downed Tatsuya Kimoto and Waseem Sablon of Springfield 6-2 in last Saturday's regular season finale. 

REWRITING THE RECORD BOOKS
•    The Beavers have set a number of team and individual records during the 2024-25 campaign, which includes earning their highest national ranking in program history at No. 11 earlier this month and breaking the single-season record for wins with their 18th on Saturday at Springfield. 
•    Wang's 20 singles wins surpassed the previous mark set by David Weisman '98, who went 19-0 on the way to capturing the 1998 Division III singles national championship, while Merson (17) and Anderson (17) have both surpassed the previous mark of 16 doubles victories in a season held by four players. 
•    Wang, who has 33 combined singles and doubles wins, and Merson's 31 victories also broke previous record of 30 set back in 2003-04 by Jon Martin '05. 

NUMBERS TO KNOW
•    The Beavers have won their last five NEWMAC Tournament matches played in Babson Park dating back to 2018. 
•    Babson has won 13 straight matches on the Babson Tennis Courts going back to the end of the 2022-23 campaign. 
•    The Green and White has won 13 consecutive matches at number four singles and six in a row at both second and sixth singles, and first and second doubles. 
•    Zhang is 11-2 in singles this spring and was forced to retired with the lead on Saturday at Sprignfield, while Harrell has won his last 10 matches to push his second record to 12-2 on the season.

UP NEXT
•    The winner of Friday's semifinal will face either second-seeded MIT or third-seeded Springfield in Sunday's conference final.