After getting rained out this past weekend, the College of Staten Island looks to finally get the CUNYAC Postseason underway, when they take on Brooklyn College in the Semifinal round of play held at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. The Dolphins enter as the tournament’s No. 2 seed, while Brooklyn comes in No. 3, skating past No. 6 Lehman College last week to open up the postseason in the quarterfinal round.
CSI vs. BROOKLYN COLLEGE
Matchup: #2 College of Staten Island (10-2, 5-1 CUNYAC) vs. #3 Brooklyn College (7-18, 4-2 CUNYAC)
Where: National Tennis Center – Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Flushing, NY
All-Time Series: CSI leads, 25-10
Last Meeting: April 2, 2019 – CSI won 6-3
Players to Watch (CSI): The Dolphins are being paced in Singles by the play of Alex Tsui, who sports a record on 10-2 overall with a 6-0 mark at No. 4 and a 2-1 mark at No. 5. He is followed closely both Raymond Hwang and Lesly DeCastro, who have identical 9-2 records. Hwang has done most of his damage at No. 3, sporting a 6-1 mark there, while DeCastro is 5-1 at No. 5 and 3-1 at No. 6, having won seven-straight matches. Matthew Vesci should be at the No. 1 spot today. He is undefeated at 4-0 this season in the top spot. Ivi Selenica is 4-4 at No. 1 and is 2-0 at No. 2. In Doubles, the team of Vesci and Tao Lin have been red-hot. They have won six-straight matches and went 5-1 in conference play, sporting a 10-1 record overall.
Players to Watch (BC): The Bulldogs are being led by the quality play of Christian Pena, as he leads all players with a 10-4 mark, boasting a perfect 4-0 record in his natural No. 4 position. Rohan Mathur and Jonathan Lum have both won seven Singles matches as well, with Mathur going 2-0 at No. 1 and 5-3 at No. 2. Lum has gone anywhere from No. 2 to No. 5 in the lineup. Justin Vasquez has seen the most time at the top, sporting a 3-8 record in the No. 1 position. Mathur and Remi Laurence have been the hot duo for BC. They are a perfect 6-0 in Doubles this season, with five of those wins coming at No. 2. Overall, Laurence leads the way with an 8-4 Doubles mark.
News & Notes: The Dolphins come into today’s semifinal match with history on their side. They have won 25 of the 35 all-time encounters and are on a five-match winning streak over Brooklyn College. Today’s match is the first playoff encounter between the two teams since 2012, a 5-2 CSI win. These two teams also met in the playoffs in 2011, a 5-0 CSI win and then in 2008, a 5-4 CSI win, so the Dolphins come in undefeated all-time against Brooklyn in the postseason. The Dolphins won the regular season meeting, 6-3, but the match was extremely tight, with two Singles flights going the full three-sets, and with the No. 2 Doubles flight won by Brooklyn via tiebreaker. CSI and Brooklyn will play their semifinal match after No. 1 Baruch College takes on No. 4 Hunter College at 3pm. Should that match end early, then, pending the weather, CSI and Brooklyn would likely start earlier in an effort to beat the evening weather. Should rain fall before or during the CSI and Brooklyn semifinal, indoor courts have been secured at Queens College where the match would pick up indoors.
