Idaho has a chance to win its first Western Athletic Conference title and earn an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament when it travels to Denver to play in the WAC championships Saturday.
Abi Stomberg | Argonaut
Abid Akbar warms up during practice for the WAC Championships this weekend. The University of Idaho Vandals finished second in the season and will start Saturday. The championships will take place at the Gates Tennis Center in Denver, Colo.
“It would be the cap on a good year,” Idaho coach Beaman said. “We had the strong start and we’ve been dealing with some injuries and different issues and sort of ended the year on a little lower note. But I think it would the cap to a great year for a really talented team.”
The first round of the tournament starts today, but Idaho earned a bye after earning the No. 2 seed in the conference.
Idaho will start the tournament in the semifinals on Saturday at 10 a.m. The Vandals will play the winner of the Friday match between No. 3 seed Texas-San Antonio and No. 6 seed Texas-Arlington. Denver, the No. 1 seed, will play the winner of the other Friday match between No. 4 seed New Mexico State and No. 5 seed Utah State. The championship will take place Sunday at 10 a.m. and the champion will earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Championship tournament May 10-27.
This year’s tournament will be the team’s only chance to make it into the NCAA tournament, Beaman said. Due to their late-season struggles – Idaho has lost five of its last nine matches and has fallen out of the national rankings – they will not likely earn an NCAA at-large berth without a conference title.
The program has never won a WAC championship. The Vandals made it to the finals for the first time in school history last season before falling to Fresno State 4-2.
The Vandals, along with Denver, will have the advantage of starting off the tournament with a bye. The bye gives them one less opportunity to go home early and a chance to avoid any injuries in the first round. Idaho has dealt with injuries all season, most notably senior Marius Cirstea. Cirstea played last weekend against UTSA in his first match since injuring his knee in early April. He only played in singles during that match, but Beaman said he will be in both the doubles and singles lineup this weekend.
Cirstea said he will be ready to play on Saturday.
“I feel very well,” Cirstea said. “I’m running normal. It’s not hurting. I play two hours a day at 100 percent, so it’s fine.”
Beaman said the lineup will look the way it has for most of the season ,with sophomore Dmitry Perevoshchikov at No. 1 in singles, senior Abid Akbar at No. 2, Cirstea at No. 3, junior Jose Bendeck at No. 4 and sophomores Cesar Torres and Cristobal Ramos Salazar at No. 5 and 6 respectively.
The doubles teams will also look familiar with Akbar and Cirstea at the No. 1 position, Bendeck and Salazar at No. 2 and Perevoshchikov and Torres at No. 3.
Cirstea said the doubles matches could be a deciding factor in how far the Vandals go in this tournament.
“If we can stay focused and we win the doubles point, I think this is the key in my opinion because we are very good doubles team,” Cirstea said. “We have three really good doubles teams. That actually can make a difference because you don’t have that much pressure on you. Instead of winning four singles, you have to win only three.”
Cirstea and fellow seniors Akbar, Ivan Krijanto, Filip Fichtel and Jake Knox will compete in their last WAC Tournament as Vandals. They have already helped the Vandals reach new heights during the last four years by accumulating a 74-34 record and going further in the WAC Tournament last season than any Idaho team before them. Cirstea said a championship should be the sign of better things to come.
“I think it’s a great achievement for the program,” Cirstea said. “Jeff tried to help us, all of us and he did a really good job recruiting people. Hopefully it will get better for us — not in my case, but for other people who are going to come here. I think being the first in something is always a very good feeling.”
Anthony Kuipers can be reached at [email protected]