SAN ANTONIO – The 14th-ranked Trinity men's tennis team split its home matches on Saturday, defeating 16th-ranked Amherst College (MA) 6-3, then falling to NAIA's Our Lady of the Lake University 8-1 to close the day.
The Tigers are now 8-7 overall this season, but have won five straight matches against Division III teams – four of which are ranked in the top 30 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
Trinity handed Amherst (7-2) just its second loss of the season to start the day, sweeping all three doubles points to strike first in the match. All three Tiger doubles teams won by scores of 8-6, beginning with
Rob Chang (Aiea, Hawaii / 'Iolani School) and
Dalton Locke (Humble, Texas / Kingwood) picking up the first point at line three.
Aashish Dhanani (Austin, Texas / Westwood) and
Eric Liao (Taipei, Taiwan / Boca Prep) followed at line one, then
Ethan Flores (Houston, Texas / Clear Lake) and
Jared Perry (Tucson, Ariz. / Catalina Foothills) completed the sweep at #2 doubles.
Amherst began singles with two wins at lines four and one to cut the lead to just 3-2, but the Tigers won three of the final four matches to take the win. Flores broke up the momentum for Amherst by scoring a 7-5, 6-0 win at line five singles, then Chang won the clincher 7-5, 6-4 at #3 singles. Liao won a tough 7-5, 7-6 (7-1) match at line six to make it 6-2 before Amherst won the final match.
Playing their third match since Friday afternoon, the Tigers went with a new lineup for the evening matchup against OLLU, which wound up allowing all 12 members of the team to play today. Dhanani and Liao were beaten 8-5 at line one doubles to start, but Flores and Perry tied things up with an 8-6 win at line two. Chang and
Connor Whittington (Lake Oswego, Ore. / Lake Oswego) nearly put Trinity in front, but fell in a tiebreaker 8-7 (7-5) to put the Saints up 2-1 after doubles.
Our Lady of the Lake swept the singles matches, though
Rafa Candelas (Zacatecas, Mexico / American School) nearly picked up a #4 singles win before falling 10-6 in a super tiebreaker for the third set. He opened with a 6-4 win in set one, then dropped the second set by the same score.
Hai Vo (Binh Duong, Vietnam / Harvest Christian Academy) nearly forced a third set as well, losing 7-6 (7-4) in the second at line two.
Up Next
Trinity will hit the road next weekend to St. Louis, taking on three teams in three days. The Tigers begin against Skidmore College (NY) at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 28. Trinity will also face off against seventh-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges (CA) and #2 Washington University-St. Louis on Friday and Saturday.
