Coach Ecarma Reviews Regular Season

April 22, 2010

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - - As the No. 15 University of Louisville men's tennis team heads into post season play, head coach Rex Ecarma reflects back upon arguable the best regular season in program history. The Cardinals posted a 19-5 record and reached their highest ever ranking at No. 10 - twice and spent the entire season in the top 20.

"When I first constructed this regular season schedule of so many good teams especially on the road, I felt if we won 55-60% of our matches we would be ranked high enough to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament," said Ecarma. "Now that we have won close to 80%, we have a good resume to potentially host the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament. This is normally reserved for the Top 16 teams in the country."

The UNLV tournament was instrumental in preparing us for this season and winning our first indoor regional tournament got us all thinking at a high level. What we experienced at the National Indoor Team Championships convinced us that we can beat anyone on any given day. Our first ever Top 10 team ranking solidified our thoughts. We played very well in January and February, all the way up to the last week of March in which we took 2 disappointing losses."

"But as this team has showed in the past, we have great bounce-back ability and defeated the 2009 Big East Champs, ended a losing streak to VCU, defeated Notre Dame in South Bend for the first time, and achieved two gutsy wins to end the season. Our body of work has been very good all season except one week at the end of March in which we all learned a lot. I believe our best tennis will be in the post season."

Additionally, Ecarma reached some individual milestones this season. He achieved his 300th career win as a coach in the 6-1 decision over Oklahoma State on Feb. 27. He now has 308 career victories as a coach - combined with the 100 singles wins and 92 doubles win as a player from 1984-87 has now compiled 500 overall wins.