St. Peter, Minnesota - The ninth-ranked Trinity men's tennis team fell 6-3 Sunday to No. 11 California Lutheran in the third-place match at the ITA Indoor National Championships.
Trinity (5-5) started the match with a victory as
Erick DelaFuente and
Jordan Mayer captured No. 1 doubles with an 8-6 win. But Cal Lutheran took a 2-1 lead in the match, by taking No. 2 doubles over Nicholas Moreno and
Aaron Skinner, and the No. 3 match-up from
Greg Haugen and
Connor Dunn. Both doubles matches were won by tight scores of 8-6.
The Tigers took two of the six singles matches, starting with No. 5, as
Jordan Mayer won 6-0, 6-0.
Charlie Curtis was a 6-4, 7-5 winner at No. 6 singles, for Trinity's other point in the dual match.
DelaFuente handily won the first set of No. 3 singles 6-0, but then lost two straight sets 6-1, 7-6 (7-5). It proved to be the clincher for Cal Lutheran, which improved to 5-1.
The Tigers began the ITA event last Friday with a 5-4 win over eighth-ranked California-Santa Cruz. Top-ranked Emory beat Trinity 7-2 in Saturday's semifinals.
Next up for the Tigers is a five-match trip to California, starting March 7 at Claremont against No. 12 North Carolina Wesleyan.
