WALLA WALLA, Wash. - The Whitman College men's tennis team kept it rolling in league play, rallying past Lewis & Clark 6-3 in Northwest Conference action on Saturday at the Bratton Indoor Tennis Center.
Lucas Huang and Aidan Schutter both won a pair of matches for the Blues (3-6, 2-0 NWC) on the day. They teamed up to win at second doubles then won critical matches in singles play.
The Blues needed a rally in singles after dropping two doubles matches. Whitman fell behind after the pairs of Diego Guzman and Noah Baker, and Charles Rush and Artem Manov lost on the No. 1 and No. 2 courts, respectively. Seeking to avoid a sweep, Huang and Schutter teamed up to take down the Pioneer tandem of Matt Chio and Kai Wills 8-5 to salvage a doubles point.
With quick wins by Huang and Baker to open singles, the Blues took their first lead of the match. The next match to finish went to Lewis & Clark as Kristian Peev topped Harshvardhan Chopra with two tiebreak wins to even the match. Schutter then broke the tie when he rallied to top Alberto Dos Santos 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 at the three.
The match-clincher came on the No. 5 court when Alejandro Raffo swept Wade McDermott 6-1, 6-4 to give Whitman the victory.
The Blues will have a quick turnaround when they host Linfield on Sunday at 8:00 a.m. before heading to Southern California for a slew of matches.
