April 29, 2004

Charleston, SC - Toby Simpson's third season at the helm of The Citadel's tennis program was one of marked improvement and showed promises of future success for the Bulldog netters. The Citadel, who finished with a record of 10-13 (6-5 SoCon), opened up their season with three tough losses. The Dogs then bounced back to open their Southern Conference slate with a six-match win streak, one more SoCon win than they had in the last two seasons combined. Despite dropping the last four conference matches of the regular season the Bulldogs earned the fourth seed in the SoCon tournament, the best seeding that the team has received since the tournament moved to a team seeding format in 1998. Simpson credited much of the teams improvement to Bulldog assistant coach Adam Carey.

Seniors Matt Stubbs (14-9, 7-4 singles, 16-5, 8-3 doubles) and John Williams (12-11, 5-6 singles, 12-11, 6-5 doubles) finished their Citadel careers with style as Stubbs was named to the All-SoCon first team and Williams received the Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship Award. Stubbs was also named SoCon tennis player of the week on March 16. At The Citadel's annual tennis banquet, coach Toby Simpson presented the Bulldog Toughness Award to Williams and the Marion S. Lewis Award to Stubbs.