On an overcast day, earlier than a couple of dozen folks on the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, a workforce of avid gamers dressed in gentle blue uniforms battles a workforce in darkish blue throughout six courts.
This is the place a faculty tennis workforce has the best second in its historical past. And the place it is going to die.
For the 1st time, the lads’s workforce from St. Francis of Brooklyn was once taking part in within the NCAA event. But after the first-round fit was once over on Friday, and St. Francis had fallen, 4-0, to Columbia, this system was once not more. St. Francis is losing all of its sports activities on the finish of the varsity yr for budgetary causes.
Chad Davis performed at St. Francis and has been the lads’s tennis trainer for 19 years. “Being an alum of the college, being there for so long and seeing the program grow year after year and battle after battle, it’s definitely a bitter pill to swallow,” he stated.
Making the event gave the impression not likely after St. Francis were given off to a 1-10 get started this season, together with a loss in its first convention recreation. “It was definitely difficult in the beginning; we weren’t clicking,” Davis said.
Then in March came the news that the college’s athletic programs were being shut down. The school cited “increased operating expenses, flattening revenue streams, and plateauing enrollment.”
“It was very surprising,” said one of the players, Luis Foix Sotos, from Jávea, Spain. “When I saw the athletic director, her voice was very sad. I said, ‘Something is going on here.’ When she told the news, some people were crying. It was a very sad moment.”
Davis said, “Just to hear it, it was definitely a gut punch.” Yet the news, the coach said, oddly seemed to rally the team. “The guys kind of came together, and we strung together some nice wins.”
The workforce gained seven of its closing 8 video games, together with all of its ultimate convention video games. But it had to win the Northeast Conference event to qualify for the NCAA event. In the overall, it met Fairleigh Dickinson, which had eradicated it the former two years.
Foix Sotos was once the participant who gained the clinching fit in a 4–2 victory. “It was the best feeling ever,” he stated. “It was once some of the happiest moments of my lifestyles. For me, it was once epic; It was once like a film that resulted in the most efficient imaginable approach.”
In the NCAA tournament against Columbia, St. Francis was a big underdog; With a 19-3 record, Columbia had achieved the highest ranking in its history, at No. 13 nationally. The match took place in front of mostly friends and family, a far cry from when the Billie Jean King Center was overstuffed with fans paying $24 for chicken tenders at the US Open.
St. Francis was further hampered by being short-handed, in part because some players were unable to cancel travel plans they had made when a trip to the tournament seemed unlikely. Foix Sotos, for example, played fourth singles, rather than his usual sixth. And Davis also had to miss the match with a health problem.
Columbia made quick work of the opening doubles matches, without dropping a set, and the singles matches were no closer. When Columbia won its clinching third singles match, the others were halted, and St. Francis’ final season was done.
St. Francis was one of the smallest schools with Division I athletics.
The men’s basketball team was one of just four original members of Division I to never make the NCAA tournament. But the men’s water polo team made multiple Final Four trips, most recently in 2013, and the city skyline backdrop to its soccer games in Brooklyn Bridge Park regularly made visiting players clamor for selfies.
The men’s and women’s track teams are the last still going, but in a few weeks their final seasons, too, will be over.
St. Francis has said it will honor the athletic scholarships of the players with eligibility remaining. “Some of the older avid gamers are making plans to stick in New York,” said Foix Sotos, whose own eligibility is exhausted. “They have a life here, and they don’t want to transfer for only one year. But for the freshmen and the sophomores, they all want to transfer; they are looking for schools.
Athletic officials said they were getting resumes together. Does Davis have any plans after two decades at the school? “At the instant, no I don’t.”
When the match was over on Friday, the teams gathered in a circle by one of the nets, linked arms, and shared a private moment.
“We have been simply pronouncing thanks,” Foix Sotos said.
“My closing school fit,” he said of the unexpected visit to the tournament. “Today was once like a praise for me.”