Men's Tennis | 2/7/2015 9:24:00 PM

LEWISTON, Idaho - Whitman College's 13th-ranked men's tennis team opened its spring season Saturday morning with a quick 6-1 non-conference victory over host Lewis-Clark State College. The Missionaries' afternoon non-conference match against the University of Idaho ended with the same score but with the Vandals capturing the 6-1 victory.

Whitman moved ahead of the NAIA Warriors in doubles action before nearly sweeping the singles flights.

Chase Friedman and Robert Carter at No. 2 and Jacob Christensen and Joey Diaz at 3-doubles helped snare the doubles point for the Missionaries as Whitman took two of the three doubles matches. Both wins were tight as match points were captured with the Warriors only a game behind.

At No. 2 Friedman and Carter took the final game from Sonam Phuntsok and Tony Chin to win 7-5. Christensen and Diaz were forced into a tie-breaking game against Zhanbolat Zhakupov and Michael Zitterkopf before coming away with a 7-6 (3) victory.

Singles action was more one-sided as four of Whitman's five points came from straight-set wins. Jake Hoeger at No. 1, Friedman at No. 2, Carter at 3, and Alex Noyes at 6-singles each took down opponents by identical 2-0 scores.

Adam Rapoport at No. 5 rebounded from a first-set 6-3 loss to Phuntsok by rallying for a 7-5 win in the second. Rapoport finished off the win in the tie-breaker third set, winning 10-4 for the final point of the morning.

Whitman picked up two wins in the match against Division I Idaho. Hoeger swept past the Vandals' Sam Jankovich without losing a game (6-0, 6-0) at 6-singles and the No. 3 doubles pairing of Colton Malesovas and Petar Jivkov downed Jankovich and Mark Kovacs by a score of 6-1.