ST. LOUIS – The ninth-ranked Tiger men's tennis team split its Friday matches on the campus of Washington University, defeating Skidmore College (NY), but falling to top-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges (CA).
Trinity (9-8) began the day with a 6-1 win over Skidmore, then dropped the second match of the day 5-2 against Claremont. That marks the second time this season that Claremont has defeated the Tigers by the same score. The teams also met at the ITA Indoor Nationals in Kentucky just over a month ago.
The day opened with doubles action against Skidmore, and Trinity took two out of three matches to win the doubles point and take a 1-0 lead.
Rob Chang (Aiea, Hawaii / 'Iolani School) and
Dalton Locke (Humble, Texas / Kingwood) started things off with a 6-1 win at line three doubles, then
Ethan Flores (Houston, Texas / Clear Lake) and
Jared Perry (Tucson, Ariz. / Catalina Foothills) clinched the point with a 6-3 win at #2 doubles. The top line doubles team of
Aashish Dhanani (Austin, Texas / Westwood) and
Eric Liao (Taipei, Taiwan / Boca Prep) nearly delivered a sweep, but fell short in a tiebreaker.
Perry took a 7-5, 6-2 win at line one to keep the Tigers on the right track with a 2-0 win. Chang added another Trinity point with his 6-3, 6-1 win at line three, then Liao got the clincher at line six. He began with a 7-6 (7-2) win in the opening set, then finished with a quick 6-2 win to make it a 4-0 lead at the time. Flores split the first two sets at line five, but took a 10-5 super tiebreaker in the third set to pick up another Tiger victory. Skidmore got its next point after that, but
Connor Whittington (Lake Oswego, Ore. / Lake Oswego) closed the match with a hard-fought win at line two. He won the opening set 6-3, but fell in a set two tiebreaker before scoring a 10-6 super tiebreaker to win the third.
The afternoon match began with Claremont winning the first two doubles matches to clinch the opening point, but Flores and Perry avoided the doubles sweep with their 7-5 victory at line two. Claremont nabbed the first singles win, but Liao won 6-2, 6-2 at line six to make it a 2-1 deficit for the Tigers at the time. Unfortunately for Trinity, the win didn't stop the Stags as they clinched the match with two more singles wins. Flores got the final Tiger point at line five, winning 6-2, 0-6, 6-3 to finish the day undefeated.
Up Next
The Tigers close out the weekend by facing hosting seventh-ranked Washington-St. Louis at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.
