Men's Tennis Clipped at Newbury
BROOKLINE, Mass. – The Mitchell College men's tennis team dropped a 5-4 decision at Newbury College on Wednesday afternoon in New England Collegiate Conference action.
Wayne Gethers led Newbury to its first victory in program history over Mitchell. He propelled the Nighthawks to the win following a nail-biting, three-set victory at sixth singles.
The Nighthawks came out of the gate strong, taking doubles two of the three doubles matches. Gethers and third doubles partner John Morgan wasted little time defeating Randy Coons and Chris McKeon by an 8-2 final. Moments later, Newbury's top duo of Antonios Tran and Christian Repunte held off Zachary Simmons and Graham Cavanaugh for an 8-6 win.
Not long after Repunte and Tran finished, the Mariners were able to salvage one doubles match. Adam Diaz and Orson Sinclair cleaned up second doubles by a score of 8-5.
Trailing 2-1 entering the singles portion of the match, the Mariners battled back to take the lead behind the play of newcomers Michael Berman and Sinclair. Berman defeated Joey Verdon in fifth singles (6-2, 6-4) to knot up the match before Sinclair knocked off Gerard Font-Raventos in fourth singles to give the Mariners a one match advantage.
However, Mitchell's lead proved brief as the Nighthawks rallied back. Tran came through with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Cavanaugh in second singles to tie up the match once again. Mitchell re-gained the lead following Diaz's straight-sets win over Morgan (6-1, 6-1) in third singles, but Repunte came through in first singles by holding off Simmons (6-4, 6-2).
That left one match out on the court for the deciding point. Gethers took the first set before Coons grabbed the second in a tiebreaker to set the stage for the dramatic third set. Gethers quickly found his back against the wall, trailing 5-3 before rallying back to tie up the set at 6-6. He then triumphed 7-2 in the tiebreaker to give the Nighthawks the victory.
Newbury improved to 6-3 and 4-1 in the conference while Mitchell dropped to 4-3 and 2-3 in the NECC.
Mitchell returns to action on Friday, April 11 at home against Lesley University at 3:30 p.m.