Table tennis finished fifth in the coed division at the 2018 National Collegiate Table Tennis Association National Championships April 19-22 in Round Rock, Texas.

The Lions entered as the sixth seed and went 3-0 in pool play in Group 6.  They defeated No. 7 seed Northeastern 3-1, No. 17 seed Duke 3-1, and No. 20 seed UBC 4-0.  In the championship bracket, Lindenwood faced No. 11 Florida and earned a 3-0 victory to advance to the quarterfinals, but lost to No. 3 seed Pillar College 3-2 in that round.  The Lions finished team competition against No. 8 UC – Davis and topped the Aggies 3-0 to tie for fifth place with No. 4 California.  In the match against UC – Davis, Massao Kohatsu from Lindenwood defeated Kunal Chodri, a member of the US National Team. 

In men's doubles, the pairing of Kohatsu and Jeff Yamada finished fourth overall.  Entering as the No. 7 seed, the duo earned a 3-0 victory over No. 28 Cheng Yao Jiang and Esteban Lizana from Pillar College, with games of 11-4, 11-2, and 11-3.  In the round of 16, it was another 3-0 outcome with games of 11-6, 13-11, and 11-3 over No. 9 Theodore Tran and Aarsh Shah from the University of California.  The Lindenwood pair advanced through the quarterfinals with a 3-1 victory over top seeded Jishan Liang and Jinxin Wang from Texas Wesleyan.  The Lions pulled off the upset after dropping the first game 11-6.  They rebounded to win three straight 15-13, 15-13, and 11-8.  The run for Lindenwood ended in the semifinals with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Adar Alguetti and Yijun Feng from New York University.  After losing the first game 11-2, the Lions evened the match with an 11-6 win, but then lost the next two 11-5 and 11-8.

In other men's doubles action, Santiago Sevilla and Joaquin Kanashiro advanced to the quarterfinals before losing to eventual champions Zhe Feng and Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos from Texas Wesleyan.  The No. 16 seeded Lions defeated No. 21 Thang Bui and Yu-Chung Lin from Stony Brook 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, and 11-6.  In the round of 16, the Lindenwood pair upset No. 5 Kunal Chodri and Bryant Lin from UC – Davis 12-10, 8-11, 12-10, and 11-7. 

Six Lions advanced to the men's singles championship bracket after pool play.  No. 13 seed Massao Kohatsu survived the longest, advancing to the quarterfinals before falling to Yijun Feng.  After winning two of the first three games 11-8, 8-11, and 11-5, Kohatsu had five match points, but could not close out the match against the Olympian.   Feng eventually won game four 15-13 and took game five 11-8.

No. 24 seed Alex Legaria made the round of 16 before being eliminated.  After stopping No. 33 Victor Seguin Barragan from Texas Wesleyan in the first round 11-4, 11-9, 11-4, Legaria defeated No. 15 Nathan Hsu from the University of Maryland 12-10, 11-5, 11-5.  The run ended against No. 3 seed Tomotaka Yoshitomi from Mississippi College.

Jeff Yamada and Filip Cajka advanced through the first round before being eliminated while Santiago Sevilla and Joaquin Kanashiro each lost their first matches in the bracket. 

In women's singles, No. 13 seed Chelsea Edghill advanced to the championship bracket and earned a first round victory against No. 26 Haolin Fang from UCLA 11-8, 13-11, and 11-6.  Edghill faced eventual singles titlist No. 2 seed Yue Wu from Texas Wesleyan in the round of 16 and lost 11-7, 11-8, 11-6.

The NCTTA National Championships concluded the season for the Lindenwood table tennis team.
 
Complete 2018 NCTTA Nationals Results