FOREST GROVE, Ore. – Action in the opening doubles matches set the tone Friday afternoon for Whitman College's 14th-ranked men's tennis team as a sweep of three tight matches spurred the Missionaries to a 7-2 Northwest Conference victory over host and 35th-ranked Pacific University. Both teams entered the match at the Holce Tennis Courts with unblemished records within the league but Friday's results leave Whitman alone at the top of the conference standings.
The Missionaries (11-6, 7-0 NWC) dealt Pacific (14-3, 7-1) only its third loss of the spring and ended the Boxers' five-match win streak.
The first point of the afternoon came from the Whitties' No. 1 doubles tandem of
Zach Hewlin and
Phillip Locklear. An early service break gave the duo a jump on Pacific's Brennan Faith and Clark Wininger but the Boxers tandem rallied to take a 6-5 lead late. Wins in the next three games, however, lifted Hewlin and Locklear to an 8-6 victory and 1-0 lead for Whitman in the match.
Shortly after, Whitman's 2-doubles teaming of
Robert Carter and
Jake Hoeger completed their own rally for the second point in an 8-6 match. Whitman's pair came back from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits and broke a 6-6 tie with consecutive wins over Oscar Wright and Chris Dalton.
The match at No. 3 was even tighter as
Gary Ho and
Adam Rapoport outlasted Pacific's Josh Bernstein and Reuben Mulhern, 9-8, winning the tiebreak by a count of 7-3. Ho and Rapoport faced an even greater uphill climb than the 2's after falling behind 3-0 at the start of their match. Trailing 6-4 the pair won consecutive games to pull even, and then each team held serve until 8-8 to force the tiebreak. Behind 2-1 the Whitman duo strung together five straight points to take command of the tiebreak before finishing Berstein and Mulhern off.
Mulhern did come back to earn the first singles point of the match, at No. 4, but a straight-set win at No. 5 from
Robert Carter followed by Ho's three-set victory at 6-singles clinched the match for Whitman.
Ho added a second come-from-behind win with his singles victory, storming back from a 6-3 opening-set loss to Bernstein by rolling through consecutive sets, 6-3 and 6-1, to bring home his second point.
The Missionaries' other two points also came in three-setters, with 19th-ranked Hewlin winning the second and third sets from Faith at 1-singles shortly before
Petar Jivkov added the final point with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 win at No. 3.
Conference action continues Saturday on the road for the Whitties as they head to Lewis & Clark College for a noon-time match against the Pioneers. The road trip concludes Sunday at George Fox University.
