This weekend the NCTTA 2018 Midwest Regionals will be hosted by and held at Lindenwood University, from where it will be live-streamed. 12 schools and more than 60 College Table Tennis student athletes from Midwestern states (such as Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc.) will pour into the Lindenwood University campus to battle for the chance at school glory.  

College Table Tennis National Championship qualification is on the line; qualifying teams will be the top three men’s/coed teams, the top 2 women's teams, the top 8 men's singles, and the top 4 women’s singles. The iSET 2018 National Collegiate Table Tennis Championships is NCTTA’s premier event and will be played in Round Rock, Texas this year in April.

The Midwest Region features scholarship school and current host, Lindenwood University. Lindenwood remains a perennial powerhouse in the Midwest, but other schools are looking to make the hosts work to defend their glory.  Northwestern, led by long-time Coach Ned Leuchtner, has a really deep team this year. Look for Northwestern who also qualified in the Women’s team to challenge the top schools. Also, always a favorite, is the University of Minnesota led by John Tranter and Kris Sabas. “The U,” as it is affectionately called, is led by 2 female players. NCTTA is unique in that the Men’s team can be coed as is clearly exemplified with “the U” (University of Minnesota).

Turning to men’s singles and women’s singles, we see a competitive draw on both sides with top men’s singles seeds 1 through 6 from Lindenwood. Brazilian international and Rookie phenom Massao Kohatsu looks to take the title for Lindenwood.  On the women’s side, sister of #1 men’s seed, Kohatsu Martina, is also a favorite as is Yixin Zhang, an ex-champ from Wisconsin, now calling University of Minnesota her new school. Zhang helped the then UW Madison team from 2016 claim 2^nd place in the competition.

NCTTA Midwest Regional Championship starts on Saturday with Team play and finishes on Sunday with Singles.

2018 NCTTA Midwest Regional Championship - Teams (Day 1)
Saturday, February 24 - 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central time

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dAjqdbX1O1A

2018 NCTTA Midwest Regional Championship - Singles (Day 2)
Sunday, February 25 - 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Central time

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bxc5q4LWw_k