KANSAS CITY, Mo.- The Ave Maria University tennis teams officially learned of their second consecutive trip to the NAIA National Tournament on Tuesday, when the NAIA national office announced the national qualifiers. Both pairs of Gyrenes fully expected to earn selection to the national tournament, after spending the entirety of the 2023 season ranked among the nation's top 20.
The field consists of 15 automatic berths, including one host berth, and nine at-large selections. Automatic qualification is mainly given to conference and unaffiliated grouping tournament champions. For the sixth consecutive year, at-large teams were determined by the NAIA Tennis National Selection Committee (NSC). The NSC consists of coaches and administrators from around the country. The committee evaluated teams throughout the year on various criteria.
Ave Maria's women made school history, entering the national tournament as the number five seed. The fifth seed is the highest any Ave Maria has even been seeded entering the national tournament, regardless of sport. The seed earns AMU a first round bye, an advantage given to the top eight teams in the nation. Ave Maria was one of five Sun Conference teams in the field, the most of any league in the nation.
The women will take on either 12th-seeded Lindsey Wilson College or 21st-seeded Cornerstone University in the round of 16. Lindsey Wilson, who was ranked 13th in the nation in the final NAIA Coaches' Poll, qualified for the tournament as the champion of the Mid-South Conference, while No. 24 Cornerstone will make their first-ever appearance in the national tournament as the champion of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference
On the men's side, the Gyrenes earned the No. 13 overall seed, a step up from last season's placing at No. 17. The Gyrene men will be looking for a win in the first round for the second year in a row, following a victory over Cumberland in round one last year. As was the case with the women's bracket, The Sun Conference was the top league in the nation, putting five teams in the 24-team bracket.
AMU's opponent in the first round will be McPherson College from Kansas, the nation's No. 21 team. McPherson appears in the national tournament for the eighth time, and qualified as the champions of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference. If the Gyrenes advance for the second straight year, their opponent would be No. 4 Tennessee Wesleyan, the champion of the Appalachian Athletic Conference.
The championships are scheduled to begin May 16, with the Gyrene men playing at 1:00 p.m. at the Mobile Tennis Center. The women will begin play the following day, with opening serve of the round of 16 scheduled for 9:00 a.m.
