May 5, 2006

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - After a stellar season, tennis standouts Kellie Schmitt and Lynzee Kever were rewarded today with an automatic bid into the NCAA Doubles Tournament hosted by Stanford from May 23-28.

Schmitt and Kever are currently ranked No. 56 in the latest ITA doubles poll. With the ranking, the duo is the highest ranked team in C-USA and received the NCAA Doubles automatic bid from the Conference. The duo is 20-4 on the season.

"We're thrilled to be going back to the NCAA Doubles Tournament," Marshall head coach John Mercer said. "It's a great accomplishment for Lynzee who has always had the goal of getting to the NCAA Tournament and for Kellie it's a great reward for an outstanding freshman season. We're very excited for both of them."

Kever and Schmitt were named the Outstanding Doubles Team of the C-USA Championships and both players were named First Team All-C-USA. Schmitt was also named the C-USA Freshman of the Year.

This will be Marshall's first trip back to the NCAA Doubles Tournament since the duo of Jessica Johnson and Ashley Kroh made it to the finals of the 2004 tournament. Johnson and Kroh made a Cinderella run to face UCLA in the finals after knocking off Cal, Michigan, Northwestern and New Mexico before losing 6-4, 6-4 to the Bruins. Johnson and Kroh became the first tennis All-Americans in Marshall history.

This year, Schmitt and Kever will look to do the same.

"Kellie and Lynzee are a very talented and dangerous duo," Mercer said. "Hopefully, we can make another run and advance deep into the draw."

For the NCAA Doubles Tournament, 15 automatic bids were handed out to teams from the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Sky, Big Ten, Big West, Colonial, C-USA, Ivy League, Mountain West, Pac 10, SEC, Sun Belt, West Coast and the WAC. There were also 17 at-large selections based on ITA rankings. Tournament pairings will not be made until after the NCAA team tournament finishes up on May 22. The event will be hosted at Stanford's Taube Tennis Center.