The weekend of 11/7 and 11/8, Columbias co-ed and womens A teams participated in the New York City Regionals, held in the gym of CUNYs Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where 12 co-ed teams and 4 womens teams duked it out.

The twelve co-ed teams that competed were from: Columbia University, Rutgers University, New York University, CUNY Baruch, Yale, Bergen Community College, County College of Morris, Fashion Institute of Technology, Brooklyn College, Polytechnic University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, SUNY Stonybrook, and Stevens Institute of Technology. The four womens teams were from: Rutgers, Columbia, Stonybrook, and NYU. The format of the tournament is all team ties, best 3 out of 5, with four singles matches and, if necessary, a final determining doubles match. Regionals are played twice a year, in November and in February, and the two teams that finish with the best records qualify for NCTTAs college nationals in April, where the top two teams from each of the 18 regions compete for the title of National Collegiate Champions.

The NYC region is notoriously competitive, especially among the co-ed teams, and this time around was no exception; NYU added new, strong players, and Baruch burst onto the scene with an extremely strong team. As expected, the matches between the top four schools, NYU, Rutgers, Columbia, and Baruch, were all extremely intense, with everyone fighting tooth and nail for each match and each point. In the end, there was a three-way tie between Rutgers, Baruch and Columbia for first place. This is just how tight it was: Columbia beat Baruch 3-2, Baruch beat Rutgers 3-2, and Rutgers beat Columbia 3-2. On the womens side, there were fewer teams and therefore was less competitive, but no less exciting: Columbia beat NYU 3-1 in 4 very close matches, and beat Stonybook 3-2. In the end, however, Rutgers came out in first place and Columbia in second place.

Congratulations to Columbia, Rutgers and Baruch for their brilliant performances, and good job to all the teams that came out to compete! It certainly went down to the wire, but well see how it goes next semester, when it will be decided which two teams go to Nationals. Thanks again to everyone for fighting hard, and thank you to everyone who came out to cheer for us and support us!

The Columbia Co-ed A Team (left to right): Kagan Irez, Santos Shih (coach), Stephanie Shih, Wujian Xue, Wei Li, Shih-hung Hsu, Victor Leung, Shih-hao Tsai. (Missing from picture: Michael Monte Montalbano)

No picture of the womens team, but it was as follows: Stephanie Shih, Yu-ling Kuo, Jenny Chen, Dehui Kong, Pen-Pen Chen, and Julia Oktaweic