By Willy Leparulo

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire has home field advantage in the most prestigious event in the College Table Tennis season, the 2015 TMS College Table Tennis Championships! Why you ask? Well our hosts are the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and for that NCTTA awards the home team a birth into the National Championships!

Joe Wells, NCTTA Vice President tells us, “It is always nice to have a home team in our championships as it brings out the local community and fans and gives us a chance to say to the team thank you for hosting.”

Alex Tollison is the NCTTA 2015 Championship Volunteer coordinator, but also serves as the UWEC Table Tennis club president. This is a special event for the UWEC team. Tollison says, “This year was special for us because around this time last year we found out that we were given the amazing opportunity to host NCTTA Championships.”

Tollison continues, “We have all worked so hard to help set up the tournament and make sure that things will flow smoothly on the days of the tournament, and we have had a wonderful timing working with the NCTTA to set this up as well as getting our team ready to compete.”

UWEC’s table tennis team is “home grown” and has never participated in a National Championship tournament, but are excited to compete! Tollison tells us, “Everyone on our team is mid-west born and table tennis team is student run and self-taught so we have very unique styles and we might just catch some players by surprise.”

Thanks to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Table Tennis club and school for hosting this wonderful event! Check out your hometown UWEC team, at the 2015 TMS College Table Tennis Championships!

The 2015 TMS College Table Tennis Championships is hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire and is one of the premier table tennis tournaments in North America featuring 6 events: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.  The event is sponsored by TMS International, Double Fish, Joola and PepPod.

Players and spectators alike will enjoy a jam-packed weekend of table tennis at the TMS College Table Tennis Championships. The event starts Friday April 10th and continues through Sunday April 12th at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus.

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

About USA Table Tennis

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, USATT is the national organizing body for table tennis in the United States, serving 9,000+ members and nearly 300 clubs. USATT sanctions 200+ events a year including the US Open and US Nationals. USATT is affiliated with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), as well as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). www.usatt.org