October 25, 2005

HANOVER, N.H. - Arvid Puranen's victory run came to a end Tuesday morning in the semifinals of the Wilson/Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast Regional Championships. The indoor event is being played in the Alan Gordon Pavilion located at Alexis Boss Tennis Center on the Dartmouth College campus.

Puranen (Jr., Lulea, Sweden), ranked No. 102 nationally and seeded second in the event, suffered a tight, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (5), loss to No. 4 seed Mark Barry (Penn State).

The win by Barry qualifies him for a spot in the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, Nov. 3-6, in Columbus, Ohio. The event will be played at the Racquet Club of Columbus and is hosted by The Ohio State University. He was scheduled to face top seed Brandon Wei (Yale) later Tuesday in the regional title match.

The ITA Northeast Regional was the final event on the Hokies fall schedule. The team will open the dual match season on Jan. 28-29, when Tech hosts the Larsen Bowker Shootout featuring Austin Peay, Charlotte, Maryland-Baltimore County and St. Bonaventure. The tournament will be held at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center on the Virginia Tech campus.

Seventeen Wilson/ITA Regional Championships for NCAA Division I men and women are taking place over the last two weekends of October at campuses throughout the country.

The 2005 ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, the nation's premier collegiate indoor tennis tournament, is the second of three national championship events for college tennis this season. The first events - the Riviera/ITA Women's and Polo Ralph Lauren Men's All-American Championships - were held earlier this month, and the third event is the season-ending NCAA Championships in May.

The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships feature a 88-player singles field and 64-team doubles field for men and women, including: qualifiers from the Wilson/ITA Regional Championships held across the country, the ITA National Small College champions, top performers from the ITA All-American Championships and at-large card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee. Overall, more than 7,000 players from nearly 600 schools participate annually in the ITA Regional and National Intercollegiate Championships.