SAN ANTONIO – Trinity's 14th-ranked men's tennis team battled to an 8-1 win over Rhodes College (TN) on Wednesday evening.
The Tigers improved their record this season to 4-6, while Rhodes fell to 5-3 with the loss. Each of Trinity's losses this season have come against ranked teams in Division III, or teams outside of the division.
Despite the lopsided final score, Trinity was in a battle to start things off in doubles. All three matches were close and two of them were decided by tiebreakers.
Connor Whittington (Lake Oswego, Ore. / Lake Oswego) and
Jared Perry (Tucson, Ariz. / Catalina Foothills) notched the first win with an 8-5 decision at line three to put the Tigers on the board. Rhodes then handed top-line doubles team
Aashish Dhanani (Austin, Texas / Westwood) and
Eric Liao (Taipei, Taiwan / Boca Prep) a narrow 8-7 (7-5) loss to tie things up. The Tigers took the lead after doubles with an 8-7 (7-3) win for
Dalton Locke (Humble, Texas / Kingwood) and
Ethan Flores (Houston, Texas / Clear Lake) at line two.
Flores rode the momentum of the doubles win straight into singles play, taking a 6-0, 6-1 win at line four that put Trinity in front 3-1.
Rob Chang (Aiea, Hawaii / 'Iolani School) got in on the action at #3 singles and promptly got another Tiger point with his 6-1, 6-2 victory. Liao clinched the match for Trinity at line five, scoring another 6-1, 6-2 win.
Ivan Nikolovski (Alpine, N.J. / Dwight Global) kept the streak going at #6 singles for Trinity, taking his 6-1, 6-1 win that made it a 6-1 lead for the team.
The duo making up the first doubles team to get a point today were the final two singles matches left on the court. Perry joined Flores as a dual winner in both singles and doubles by taking a 6-2, 6-4 decision at line one. Whittington had the toughest match of the day, rallying to win after dropping the first set 7-6 (7-3). He won the second easily at 6-2, then won the super tiebreaker by a 10-5 score to give the Tigers a singles sweep.
Up Next
Following a day off on Thursday, the Tigers are back in action on Friday morning, hosting #13 Swarthmore College (PA) at 10:00 a.m.
