TACOMA, Wash. – Whitman College's men's tennis team finished off a Northwest Conference two-fer day on opposite sides of the state Saturday as part of the squad downed host University of Puget Sound, 9-0, shortly after the other half of the team had finished off host Whitworth University, 7-2, on the other side of the state in Spokane.
Whitman's pair of victories keeps the 13th-ranked Missionaries undefeated in the league at 4-0 while improving their overall mark to 8-1. The losses kept Whitworth (0-5, 0-3 NWC) and Puget Sound (0-6, 0-6) still searching for an initial victory this spring.
The later match at Puget Sound went quickly as Whitman rolled to a sweep of the three doubles matches then mirrored that success in singles, taking all six matches in straight sets surrendering a maximum of three games in any one set.
Phillip Locklear, at 2-doubles and 1-singles,
Chase Friedman (No. 1 doubles, No. 2 singles)
Robert Carter (1-doubles, 3-singles) and
Gary Ho at 2-doubles and 4-singles each came away from the afternoon with a pair of wins.
Luke Targett (5-singles) and
Jacob Christensen (No 6 single) completed the singles sweep with wins, and the tandem of
Adam Rapoport and
Alex Noyes captured the 3-doubles point that allowed Whitman to head into singles with a 3-0 advantage.
Earlier Whitman picked up a pair of wins in doubles at Whitworth for an early 2-1 lead.
Colton Malesovas and
James Rivers teamed up for an 8-4 victory at No. 1 over the Pirates' Drew Brigham and Shane Sandlin. The 2s,
Zach Hewlin and
Jake Hoeger, battled Whitworth's Blake Miller and Matt Goebel before taking an 8-6 win over the Whitworth pairing.
Petar Jivkov picked up the opening point in singles action for Whitman, taking a straight-set win (6-3, 6-3) at No. 3 from Chris Engelmann. Adding the fourth point for the M's was Hewlin at No. 2 as he downed Miller (6-3, 6-1) for the second time in the day.
The clinching point for Whitman came from Malesovas at 1-singles, who outlasted Brigham in the opening set, 7-6, before coming away with the match, 6-3, in the second.
Rivers at 4-singles and Hoeger at 5 also added wins during Whitman's victory.
The Tacoma group doubles up on Sunday, squaring off against Pacific Lutheran University in the morning for a conference match, then heading to Bellevue, Washington, to take on the Bellevue College Bulldogs in a non-conference match late in the afternoon.
