SAN ANTONIO – No. 13 Trinity University Men's Tennis will hit the road again this weekend to face host No. 38 Hardin-Simmons University on Saturday for another non-conference NCAA III matchup.
The Tigers (4-2, 2-0 SCAC) faced a tough loss against host NCAA I University of Texas–Arlington last weekend but bounced back with a strong 8-1 win over UT-Dallas to improve to 4-0 against NCAA III opponents this season.
SCAC Doubles Team of the Week: Aashish Dhanani and Eric Liao
First-year
Aashish Dhanani (Austin, Texas / Westwood) partnered up with sophomore
Eric Liao (Taipei, Taiwan / Boca Prep [FL]) to earn their first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Doubles Team of the Week honor as a duo, and Dhanani's first SCAC award of his career.
The pair posted the Tigers only point against NCAA I UT-Arlington with their 6-3 victory from line two. The selection marks Liao's second time earning a conference weekly honor, his first being with his usual doubles partner this spring, senior
Hao Nguyen (Sugar Land, Texas / Strake Jesuit).
NCAA III Rankings: New Team Rankings March 10, Player Rankings March 17
Trinity was ranked No. 13 as a program this preseason by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), which came with singles rankings for senior
Alessio Azzalini (Rome, Italy / Istituto Visconti) at No. 13 and Nguyen at No. 30 along with a No. 23 ranking for the duo of Azzalini and first-year
Rafa Candelas Ruiz (Zacatecas, Mexico / American [ESP])
Preview: at Hardin-Simmons (Mar. 4; 10:00 a.m.)
On the Cowboys: Hardin-Simmons is on a five-match winning streak after dropping its first two matchups of the season to NCAA I Abilene Christian University and Texas A&M University-Texarkana. The Cowboys' last two wins came in 9-0 sweeps over LeTourneau University and East Texas Baptist University in American Southwest Conference play.
Since 2010, the Tigers have won all 13 of their matchups with Hardin-Simmons with 10 contests finishing with 9-0 sweeps. Their last competition was in February of 2022 with Trinity taking the match 8-1.
Hardin-Simmons' Brice Bradshaw is ranked No. 46 nationally by the ITA while the Cowboys have three other regionally ranked players—Nathan Schoendorf (No. 18) will be facing off in the singles lines, and the duo of James Moore and Desmond O'Shea (No. 10) will be battling it out in the doubles line.
Looking Ahead:
No. 13 Trinity Men's Tennis will be heading to California to play in the annual Stag-Hen Invitational, hosted by No. 5 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps College (CA) and No. 9 Pomona-Pitzer Colleges (CA).
The Tigers will return home March 16 to host the reigning NCAA III champion No. 1 University of Chicago before heading across the street for another NCAA I battle, this time against University of the Incarnate Word (March 18).
