Mississippi College Table Tennis Team Defends Dixie Division Crown Feb 19th

Mississippi College’s table tennis team will defend their Dixie Division crown at a February 19th regional tournament at the Baptist Healthplex in Clinton.

Working hard in recent practices at Alumni Gym, the MC Choctaws are hoping to prevail that Saturday in the regional tournament and punch their ticket to the 2011 national championships April 14-17 in Rochester, Minnesota.

 It would be the 4^th consecutive trip to the national championships for Mississippi College that began competing in the Olympic sport in 2007.

The event at the Baptist Healthplex is free and open to the public.

One of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association regionals this spring, the Clinton  tournament begins at 9 a.m. and wraps up around 4:30 p.m. MC will face teams such as the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi State University, West Florida, the University of Alabama and Alabama-Huntsville.

At the moment,  Mississippi College’s  team is ranked 4^th in the NCTTA’s coed division among  more than 150 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada fielding table tennis squads. MC is ranked ahead of No. 5 San Jose State, No. 6 University of Toronto and No. 7 Princeton. In the mid-season rankings, perennial powerhouse Texas Wesleyan is rated No. 1 and No. 2 is Lindenwood University of Missouri.

The February 19^th tournament will feature the USA debut of MC’s only female player, Zijun Yang, a communication major who’s a recent transfer from China. She will join veteran players including Captain Ken Qiu, Bill Cai, Yang Yu,  and Zhicheng “Johnson” Liang, all natives of China, and MC junior Ben VanHorn of Clinton.

On February 11-12, MC’s table tennis team is booked for a regional tournament at Florida State University’s Tallahassee campus. The event is sponsored by the Association of College Unions International.

“MC’s team owes much of its success to our dedicated Captain Ken Qiu, who’s been an outstanding player, coach and recruiter of top talent from China over the past four years,” said Andy Kanengiser, the team’s sponsor and MC’s university news coordinator.

A graduate student at MC’s School of Business, Qiu is also a full-time staff member at MC’s Office of International Programs. His father is a professor and longtime table tennis coach in China.

For more information on MC’s table tennis team, contact Qiu at 601.925.7703 or qiu@mc.edu or Kanengiser at 601.925.7760 or kanengis@mc.edu.