Mike Sowter was named head coach of men’s and women’s tennis at NJIT in the summer of 2008 following a successful two-year stint at Hofstra University, where he was head coach of the men’s and women’s tennis teams for previous two seasons.
Since coming to NJIT, he has established both Highlander programs as consistent winners, a fact that was underlined when the women’s team captured the Great West Conference championship on May 1, 2011, thus becoming the first team from NJIT to capture a Division I conference title in any sport. Indeed, the Highlander women have won at least 11 matches and posted a winning record every season since beginning Division I competition in 2006.
In 2012-13, the NJIT men’s team combined for a 16-6 record, the second highest win total at the Division I level (record is 18, 2010). Freshman Markus Schultz finished the 2012-13 season ranked 18th in the NCAA Division I Northeast Region by the authoritative Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). Schultz becomes the first NJIT tennis player to achieve season-end regional ranking from the ITA since the Highlanders began NCAA Division I competition in 2006-07.
The women’s team finished with a 15-6 overall record and went 3-0 at the National Invitation Tennis Tournament in 2012-13. Senior Monika Graff was named 2013 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Northeast Regional winner of the Arthur Ashe Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship for the second consecutive season. The two-time Northeast Regional winner of the Arthur Ashe Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship is also a three-time Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete and recognized earlier this year by New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women “Woman of the Year” award.
The NJIT women’s tennis team repeated as Great West Conference Champions in 2011-12, becoming the first NJIT team to win back-to-back conference championships in the program’s sixth season competing at the Division I level under Sowter.
The Highlanders finished with a school-record 21 wins (2011-12), the best ever for a program that has had winning records in Division I competition and qualified for the NCAA tournament when NJIT competed at the Division II level in 2005.
Ksenia Kuzmenko and Monika Graff were named to the first team all-GWC while freshman Carolina Zanotta was recognized on the GWC second team and named GWC Newcomer of the Year.
Sowter was named Coach of the Year for women’s tennis in the Great West Conference in 2010-11 and his pupil, Ksenia Kuzmenko, a freshman, was Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year in the conference (the GWC sponsors a championship in women’s tennis, but not men’s tennis).
Early in his tenure with the two Highlander programs, Sowter helped Stephen Erickson (’10) to the championship of the ECAC in Flight A Singles in Fall 2008.
Sowter’s won-lost record in five years at NJIT is 78-37 with the women’s program and 67-42 with the men’s program.
In addition to the excellence in competition, many of the student-athletes recruited by Sowter have excelled academically. Each year since he took over as coach, both programs have been honored as an All-Academic Team by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (team cumulative GPA of 3.20 or higher). In 2010-11, 10 individual NJIT tennis players, six women and four men, received ITA scholar-athlete honors (minimum cumulative GPA of 3.50 and at least two semesters).The 2011 Great West Conference champion women’s tennis team had a team cumulative GPA of 3.663, the highest among NJIT’s 18 varsity teams.
At Hofstra, Sowter led the women’s team to a 14-10 overall record in 2007-08, while also directing the men’s squad to an 11-11-1 mark. Both records represented substantial improvements over the previous seasons, as the women’s wins total jumped from three to 14 and the men improved from seven wins to 11.
The women’s tennis team received the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-Academic Team award for the 2007-2008 season for their excellence in the classroom.
His two-year totals with Hofstra were 18-24-1 with the men and 17-26 with the women.
A native of Perth, Australia, Sowter was a junior college all-American at Wallace State in Alabama, before transferring to NCAA Division I Marist, where he was a two-time all-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference honoree and a two-time NCAA Tournament participant.
Following his graduation from Marist in 2002, he coached at the small college level for two years with Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, compiling a 20-9 record and garnering Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2003.
He returned to his alma mater as assistant women’s coach in 2004-05 and helped Marist post a 14-4 overall record, including a perfect 7-0 conference regular season mark.
He took over as head coach of Hofstra’s tennis teams in February 2006, leading the men to seven wins and the women to three victories in his first season before an 11-win jump for the women and a four-win improvement for the men in his second season. His first recruiting class added five women to the 2007-08 roster, including the number one and number two players, who combined to go 30-5 in match play at their respective slots, helping account for the team’s improvement from three wins to 14.
The Hofstra women’s freshman recruiting class was ranked 10th-best among the nation’s mid-major programs by the web site tennisrecruiting.net.
NJIT and Hofstra faced off in each of the Highlanders’ two seasons of Division I competition and Sowter’s two years as Hofstra head coach. The Pride men defeated NJIT both times—6-1 in 2007 and 7-0 in 2008. The Highlander women won easily in 2007 (6-1) and again in a close contest in 2008 (4-3).
In addition to his college coaching, Sowter is head tennis professional at Bailiwick Club in Greenwich, CT, and he is a teaching professional at ProForm Tennis at Doral Arrowood in Rye Brook, NY. He has also served as tennis director at Camp Vega for Girls in Kents Hill, ME.
He resides in Port Chester, NY, with his wife, Monika, and their son, Tristan.
