For the second year in a row, RPI’s table tennis team has gone up against the best in the nation and walked away with much more than a top finish. After they took the nation by storm last April, the upsets they left behind were their legacy as they finished an aptly-named Cinderella season. When they fought their way from 27th in the nation to fourth, they were generally an unexpected force despite the team’s national championship victory in 1997. Last weekend, however, they entered the national tournament at no. 11. The higher ranking didn’t mess with their style as they once again finished fourth.
The team is led by graduate student Anurat Chapanond, and consists of freshman Ritesh Kotecha, sophomore Yin Wang, junior Benjamin Tom, senior Joel Dever, and graduate student Li Renge.
“It almost sounds too perfect to be true. Two years in a row our school was not by any means one of the most outstanding teams … skill-wise there’s a lot of teams out there with a lot larger student body,” said Wang, referencing Ohio State’s 50,000 students from which to pull. “But we do have a good program, coaches, and team members that help each other out.”
Once the team made it out of the round-robin play and through the 12-team bracket, they went on to play for the third place finish. Sadly, early flights back to Albany forced the team to abandon the final matches and settle for fourth. This year they gave Columbia that free ride after losing their only game in the bracket to Texas Wesleyan—a team that recruits heavily and is able to attract Olympic medalists to its program with scholarships—who once again won the championship. Princeton also throws its weight around in the recruiting world and was able to beat RPI in the round-robin before going on to take second overall.
Although Northeastern gave Rensselaer a scare early in the bracket, RPI held off the Wildcats for the victory. University of Southern California also gave RPI a scare as the team started off slow and needed a big comeback rally to secure the win over the USC Trojans. A handy upset by Wisconsin over Stanford let RPI match-up and beat the Badgers. “My favorite part is playing people that are much higher than me and gaining that experience” said Tom.
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) currently has approximately 150 teams across the country and regulates the top play in the nation. The region RPI belongs to was able to send two teams to nationals last season, but had only one slot this season. This caused the team to enter the season with a disadvantage. In the first tournament of the season, hosted here at the Armory, Cornell beat the home team which effectively ended Rensselaer’s chances of getting the region’s automatic bid. Despite this setback, the team kept hope and went on to qualify with a wildcard bid late in the season.
Of the many lessons learned through these two magical seasons, never giving up or losing hope would be the most essential to their success story. Looking back at both seasons from their top finishes, no one could predict the achievements at the beginning of the season. No one that is, except their ever-motivational coaches. Mr. and Mrs. Choi, a husband and wife team that volunteers their time to help the players perfect their technique and stay on top of their game. Both are accomplished in the national playing field, having gained international experience on the Korean National Team.
“In our first tournament in the fall, we had high expectations, but we ended up falling to Cornell—a team we had beat last year; so, we were kind of set back and depressed.” said Dever. “It kind of took our hopes down because it ensured that we wouldn’t get the top spot in the division, but it ended up that we got the wildcard.”
Now that RPI has established itself among the top teams in the nation, they have picked up a sponsorship by Killerspin, arguably the largest table tennis supplier in the U.S. They head into the off-season looking for new talent as two reliable A-team seniors head on to another chapter in their lives.
