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MC Table Tennis Team Wins Dixie Division Tournament


MC Table Tennis Team members pictured at the Dixie Div. Tournament: (back row) Bill Cai, Zhicheng "Johnson'' Liang, Captain Ken Qiu, Ou Lan; (front row) Jessica Zhou and Jenny Wu. Not pictured:Maria Montano and Ben VanHorn
Led by players from China and Venezuela, Mississippi College's Table Tennis Team won the Dixie Division Tournament and took a big step to a return trip to the Nationals in Wisconsin in April 2010.

MC newcomers Bill Cai and Zhicheng "Johnson" Liang plus Captain Ken Qiu were among the keys to Saturday's first-place finish at the Baptist Healthplex. Mississippi State University was the runner-up and the University of Alabama-Huntsville finished third.

Teams from the University of Southern Mississippi, West Florida and the University of Alabama also competed in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association's regional, one of 18 such events in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, a newcomer to the division this fall, was unable to play in the games at MC due to transportation problems.

The 2010 championships will be played in a Milwaukee, Wis. suburb. MC put in a strong showing at last spring's Nationals in Rochester, Minnesota. The MC women finished in 4th place, one better than Stanford, and the overall squad came in 16th, a notch ahead of No. 17 Michigan State.

Compared to the nationally ranked 2009 MC squad, "I feel that our team is much stronger this time," said Qiu, who's in his third season as the captain. "But we still need to improve ourselves."

Scheduled during MC's 2009 Homecoming, Saturday's tournament attracted a steady stream of visitors, including President Lee Royce and his wife, Rhoda, Vice President for Advancement Bill Townsend, MC International Programs Director Jim Brackenridge, plus a number of alumni to cheer on the Choctaws. Ping pong fans from the Jackson metro area also showed up in good numbers to check out the day-long action on the floor of the basketball court.

MC's team also saw solid showings by Lan Ou, Maria Montano and Jenny Wu. Sophomore Ben VanHorn of Clinton finished on a positive note by winning his last match of the day.

"Our team turned in another terrific performance, but they can't take it easy," said university news coordinator Andy Kanengiser, the team's sponsor. The Spring Dixie Division Tournament is set for Feb. 13 at the Baptist Healthplex and winning that event is the ticket back to the Nationals, he said. The competition at the national collegiate championship is fierce - from Puerto Rico to Texas, from Toronto to California.

In recent days, other collegiate table tennis teams (there are over 150 teams nationwide) have played in regional in tournaments. Among them, the 4th-ranked University of Wisconsin Badgers won the Upper Midwest Regional Tournament. Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth has won NCTTA championships every year since 2002 and is the favorite to repeat in 2010, Kanengiser said.

While the MC Choctaws lost to Howard Payne 38-24 on the football field, other MC teams did exceptionally well over the weekend. The MC men's cross country team won their seventh American Southwest Conference Cross Country Championship and the first since 2004 on Saturday at Choctaw Trails. Freshman Tino Gonzalez took top honors with a time of 28:02:32 at the meet.

The MC women's soccer team grabbed the No. 3 seed in the ASC tournament with a 2-1 win over East Texas Baptist on Saturday afternoon at Arrow Field on the Clinton High campus. The Lady Choctaws finished the regular season with an 11-5-2 record overall and 9-2-2 in the American Southwest Conference.

The MC men's basketball team is ready to open the 2009-2010 season with a 7 p.m. exhibition game Monday night (Nov. 2) against the Alcorn State Braves at the A.E. Wood Coliseum in Clinton.