AMHERST, N.Y. - Freshman Patrick O'Brien (Pittsford, N.Y.) of the Daemen College men's tennis team was named a second team All-East Coast Conference honoree for the 2018-19 season today. He becomes just the second player—and the first freshman—in program history to earn All-ECC honors. He joins current teammate Ricardo Ruiz Martinez, who collected the honor in 2017 and 2018, as the only all conference honorees in program history. The official announcement of the All-ECC teams, which were voted on by the league's six head coaches, was made in a press release today from conference headquarters in West Babylon, N.Y.
O'Brien missed nine of Daemen's 21 matches this year, but still managed to lead the team in singles wins (10). He played in the final ten matches of the year and went 8-2 overall during that span and posted a 4-1 mark in conference play. Two of his singles wins came against NCAA Division I opponents, as he downed Prabh Bal (6-4, 6-2) of Coppin State University on April 6 and closed out his rookie season by rallying to beat Brent Boleslav (4-6, 7-5, 10-8) of Niagara University earlier this week.
He went 6-6 in doubles play and posted a combined singles/doubles record of 16-10 this season. The majority of O'Brien's singles matches came in the fourth position in Daemen's lineup where he posted a 6-2 record. He posted an overall record of 10-4 during singles play this year and his .714 winning percentage in singles play for the season established a new team record. Only O'Brien, Ruiz Martinez and Mark Veitengruber have posted winning percentages higher than .600 for a season in the seven-year history of the program. Ruiz Martinez went 17-9 last year, while Veitengruber went 15-10 a year ago. O'Brien's ten singles wins ranks seventh among the program's all-time leaders for most singles wins in a season.
In addition to the all-conference announcement, the league also announced that Marcel Volz of St. Thomas Aquinas College has been named the league's Player and Rookie of the Year, while Matt Capell of STAC was voted Coach of the Year.
As a team, Daemen finished the season with a 6-15 overall record and a 1-4 mark in the ECC under the guidance of first year head coach Kerry McDermott.
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