Final 2024-25 Season Wrap-Up

At the completion of another season, we have had a couple of weeks to reflect on our journey together. It was another special season that presented unique challenges, but also taught us how to be massively resilient and strong. Winning our conference tournament of course a huge highlight, but as anyone who has been a part of our program knows well it will be the memories and bonds that we forget created together that will carry us for a lifetime! We can also be immensely proud of the rise in our tennis as we began to peak more and more as a team at the right time. For example, we won 7 straight doubles points to finish our season! We look forward to building on our learnings from this season, welcoming our graduating seniors to our Middlebury Tennis alumni group, and continuing to create the magic that defines our Middlebury Tennis program. 

Loved this squad!

NCAAs

For the NCAA regional rounds, we headed to Baltimore, MD to compete in the section of the bracket hosted by Johns Hopkins. Upon our arrival, we were welcomed and supported by some of the family members and alumni who lived in the area, helping to put us at ease on the road! We kicked things off in the Round of 32 by sweeping a rising Allegheny team 4-0. The full box score can be found here. Next up, we had to face the hosts Johns Hopkins in what we knew would be a great battle of teams that were both playing good tennis especially toward the end of our seasons. As a team, we came out ready to rumble and battled to win an incredibly fun doubles point via a 6-2 win at #2 doubles (Hentschel/Kondamuri) followed by an epic 7-6(7) tiebreak win at #1 doubles (Laber/Wijemanne). From there, the next point we earned was a thrilling come-from behind win at #2 singles (Wu) who cruised to a 6-0 third set! Credit to Johns Hopkins who got the best of us in many of the singles positions, but we certainly forced them to battle hard and they played well. The full box score can be seen here. In fact, Johns Hopkins would have 4 team match points against the eventual DIII national team champs in the next round.   

The doubles pair of Hentschel/Kondamuri went on a tear at the end of our season.

NCAA Individuals

The final stop on our season’s journey was for Noah Laber to compete in the NCAA singles tournament and for Noah Laber and Thehan Wijemanne to pair up for the doubles. We ended up losing a tough match in doubles to CMS in the first round, but that did not stop Noah and Thehan from ending the year ranked top 5 nationally! Pretty impressive stuff from them throughout the year. On the singles side of the event, 

Thehan had an epic year both in doubles and singles too for the squad!

Noah's match day intensity was next level!

End of Year NCAA Ranking Achievements

- #7 National Ranking as a team (#2 regionally)

- #4 National Noah Laber singles (#2 regionally)

- #33 National Neel Epstein singles (#14 regionally)

- #34 National Julian Wu singles (#10 regionally)

- #4 National Laber/Wijemanne doubles (#2 regionally)

Neel with one of his classic fist pump moments!

Gratitude

A final expression of our utmost appreciation needs to go out to our players, support staff, alumni, and families! Special thanks to the hard work and dedication that Noah Laber and Neel Epstein displayed during their careers and cannot wait to stay connected with them as alumni! Shelby, thanks for being an incredible athletic trainer and taking care of our squad from start to finish. We would not have been able to compete as well without your support and efforts! Thanks to Ali Paquette, Dain McKee, Ben Blakely and all of Athletic Communications for keeping up with our stats, taking pictures and videos, and helping to capture many magic moments during our season. Thanks again to our guest strength coach Ryan Nosak, he's a Panther beast who has added a ton to our program and helps keep us fit, strong, and healthy. Last but of course not least by a long shot, thanks to our amazing team parents and families whose incredible support, cheering, taking us out to eat, providing snacks, traveling, and being there for our group helps make us feel like the most loved and supported team!

This team knew how to celebrate the fun moments! What a clinch it was at NESCACs!

Go Midd!

- Middlebury Tennis Coaching Staff

2025 NESCAC Champs: Third Conference Title in Four Years

Earning opportunities to compete together. This was a key theme for our team as we wrapped up regular season play and then hosted our NESCAC conference tournament. As we reached the phase of the year where you have to earn your ticket to postseason events and each round is win or go home, there exists a special motivation in that we want to do everything we can to literally create more opportunities to go out and compete together. There is nothing like the college team format in terms of bring together intensity, passion, and magic... created from taking on challenging opponents and testing ourselves to see how well we can play as a group. Having waded through some different forms of adversity, experienced ups and downs, our group displayed brilliant grit and determination en route to winning the 2025 NESCAC tournament and officially punched our ticket to NCAAs! I would hazard to guess we might be one of the only teams ever to win a conference tournament vanquishing three consecutive opponents that beat us earlier in the season! What a special run and the best part is, we get to keep competing together again soon!

Midd!

Last Three Regular Season Matches

We won two of our final three NESCAC regular season matches. We took a tight 4-3 loss to Williams where we battled hard and earned solid victories at #1 (Laber), #3 (Epstein), and #5 (Wijemanne), but did not have enough punch to get over the line and in addition took an injury that forced us to retire in one of our matches. The box score can be seen here. 

That being said, we felt like we dug deep and came away with a feeling that we had better tennis ahead of us and set our sights on proving that during the next weekend. Next up, was two final home regular season matches where the boys really shined! We took out Wesleyan 4-0 followed by Trinity (CT) 7-0! An exciting part of these two matches is that our doubles came out firing in both matches earning two wins at #1 doubles (Laber/Wijemanne), two wins at #2 doubles (Hentschel/Kondamuri) and one win at #3 doubles (Larsen/Epstein). We followed up our strong doubles play with some excellent showings in singles and could feel our growing confidence as a group at just the right time. Full box scores can be seen here and here.

Reif and Neel teaming up!

Wijemanne lining up to rip!

Senior and Alumni Weekend 

Special shout out to our seniors, families, and alumni who made our Wesleyan and Trinity home matches a truly special environment. The collective energy and support we felt, injected us with a boost of confidence and fire that carried us that weekend and sparked us to feel like we were getting ready to peak as we headed toward postseason play. Here is a great photo from the weekend!

Love the support from our Midd Alum Family!

NESCAC Quarterfinal (Midd beats Williams 4-0)

In the first stop on our payback tour, we faced off with Williams on our brand-new outdoor courts. Having lost to them in a nail-biter two weeks prior, we knew we had to come out firing and we did just that! We kicked off the match by earning some excellent doubles wins with #1 doubles starting the party (Wijemanne/Laber) followed by #2 doubles (Kondamuri/Larsen) clinching the doubles point with some electric energy! Third doubles remained unfinished but was on a great track as well. We then earned three hard fought straight set victories at #s 4-6 singles (Wijemanne, Hentschel, Larsen) to put the match to bed! We were nearing the finish line at some of the other matches as well, and it was a fun atmosphere to be a part of from start to finish. The full box score can be seen here.

Hentschel and Kondamuri on fire!

Laber amped!

NESCAC Semifinal (Midd beats Tufts 4-3)

Next stop on our revenge track we took on Tufts indoors in Nelson Arena due to rain. Tufts had an incredibly strong regular season, and we knew we would need to come out and play fearlessly to give us a chance and that we did! We secured the key doubles point beginning again with #1 doubles (Wijemanne/Laber) followed by #3 doubles (Epstein/Larsen) who fought off a furious comeback attempt. With growing confidence and momentum, we kept battling from the get-go in singles play. We needed three more points to get across the line, and knew there would be no easy matches. At #4 singles (Wijemanne) competed with exceptional poise winning 6-7, 6-2, 6-2 after clawing back from an early deficit to having had a couple of set points in the first set to then staying composed throughout to earn an excellent win! Next up with his own three set accomplishment at #3 singles (Epstein) won a thriller of a back-and-forth matchup winning 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 in true warrior like fashion! Finally, the stage ended up being set for #5 singles (Hentschel) to secure the clinching point for the second day in a row with a resounding 6-3, 6-2 victory where he played some nearly flawless tennis with all eyes on him at the end of the match! The full box score can be seen here. Click on the image below to see Hugh Hentschel serve up a massive ace to send our team to the conference title match!

NESCAC Final (Midd beats Bowdoin 4-1)

For the final stop on our avengers path, we matched up with Bowdoin. Our goal was to play free and to play with joy, and we were able to do just that which is not always easy coming off big wins the two days prior. Again doubles set the stage for us. Similar to the day before, we secured the massive doubles point with wins from #1 doubles (Wijemanne/Laber) followed by #3 doubles (Epstein/Larsen). Heading into singles play, we found ourselves in incredibly competitive first sets across the board. After dropping the first set at #6 singles, it was looking like Bowdoin might find some momentum. However, displaying our rising grit we won three hard fought first sets within a span of about five minutes at #1, 2 and 5 singles. All three of those courts then raced to leads in their seconds sets as well, starting to open a path to the title for us! First to get across in singles was #5 singles (Hentschel) who continued his impressive display of tennis in big moments moving our squad to two points away from the match. Next up, after weathering a comeback bid and having a couple of earlier match points, #1 singles (Laber) served out his match in impressive style to secure a straight set win inching us to one match away from the title. Demonstrating his ability to track and make his opponents cover every inch of the court, #2 singles (Julian Wu) clinched the conference title for the Panther squad outlasting his opponent in some epic rallies to earn a 4-1 NESCAC Championship Final! What a special and well-earned moment for our team! Us coaches could not be more thrilled for our players!

Juju secured the title clinch!

These seniors do it again, third time in four years!

NCAA Regional Rounds Up Next

For the NCAA regional rounds, we will travel as the highest seed in our region with play hosted at Johns Hopkins University. Our round of 32 match match will be on Saturday, May 10th! Amped Up! 

Go Midd!