Hurricanes Prep For BIG EAST Championships
April 25, 2003
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) – – This probably isn’t the way that Miami men’s tennis coach Bryan Getz saw his team going into the BIG EAST Championships.
Recently, his team lost three key players to a number of season-ending injuries, including the team’s winningest member, No. 5 player Eric Hechtman (15-3 in dual matches). The team had also lost projected No. 2 singles player Tim Krebs earlier in the season and had more recently lost Shauny Hoyes, who had earlier been ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
With just five players on the roster, coach Bryan Getz has gone so far as to recruit non-varsity players in order to be able to put a full team on the courts this weekend.
“We just go snake-bit with injuries, we lost three guys for the year and we needed to get more just in case other people got injured as well,” Getz said.
Largely through word of mouth, Getz heard about players with varying degrees of ability who might be interested in playing on the team this weekend.
“I just saw a bunch of them playing out here on the courts and another one… one of the kids on the team said his name and they knew him from back in high school,” Getz said. “I think they’re doing the best they can.”
Coral Gables High School graduate Fabrizio Rotati was one such player.
“I knew a couple of the players from the UM team,” Rotati said. “They referred me to coach and he gave me a call and things happened to my favor.”
Rotati said it’s been exciting to play with Division 1 caliber talent, especially that of the No. 22-ranked Hurricanes.
“It’s been nice, it’s been a great experience playing at this high level,” he said. “This is different (than what I’m used to), this is more of a team environment and it’s fun. It’s a bunch of good friends trying to pump each other up.”
The other two walk-ons are Niki Popovic and Chris Erikson.
The Hurricanes are the top seed this weekend in the BIG EAST Championships and the No. 22-ranked team in the nation.
Saturday at 9 a.m., Miami will play No. 4 seed Rutgers.
