St. Peter, Minn. - The 11th-ranked Trinity University men's tennis team wins 4-3 in a dramatic comeback against 16th-ranked Gustavus Adolphus College, in their second consolation match of the ITA Indoor National Championships.
The Tigers followed up their excellent doubles action from yesterday, scoring wins at the top two lines and claiming the doubles point once again. In search of redemption after yesterday's loss, the reliable #1 duo of Rocco Mendez  (Las Vegas, Nevada / Odyssey Charter School) and Kishan Kersten (Plano, Texas / Plano West) played a close match and won 7-5, with Mendez clutching up with a tally of big serves to win the final game. It was then left up to the #2 partnership of Aashish Dhanani (Austin, Texas / Westwood) and Eric Liao (Taipei, Taiwan / Boca Prep) to bring home the doubles point. The match was a tight contest that swung back and forth, but there was only ever one winner. This duo showed their fight and fought back from 3-4 down to win 6-4. This won the doubles point for Trinity and allowed for the #3 match featuring Conor Kaczmarczyk (Aurora, Colorado / Regis Jesuit) and Ethan Flores (Houston, Texas / Clear Lake) to be cut short at 5-5, keeping the slate clean for the Tigers.
The singles matches started swiftly after and like yesterday's matches, today produced another thrilling contest. The Tigers got off to a rough start as first to finish were #2, #3, and #6 which all produced agonizingly close contests that resulted in losses. Putting the Tigers 3-1 down at this point in the match. Ryan Warren (Keller, Texas / Connection Academy) played at #2 attempting to repeat his brilliant win from yesterday but fell short losing in straight sets 6-2 and 6-3. A similar result occurred at #3, as Roshin Kamath (League City, Texas / Clear Springs) lost 6-0 and 6-4. Then to round off the opening losses, Dhanani at #6 couldn't reenact his doubles brilliance and lost 6-3 and 6-1. The next two matches to finish were vital in order for the Tigers to stay in the fight for the win. Jared Perry (Tucson, Arizona / Catalina Foothills) at #1 battled his way through three close sets, winning 6-4 and 6-3 in the 1st and 3rd set, to clinch the second point of the match for the Tigers. Next to finish was Kersten at #4, who after losing the first set 7-5, crawled his way back and dominated the next two sets, winning them 6-1 and 6-4, and equalizing the match at 3-3. This left the results in the hands of Liao at #5. In commanding fashion Liao won his first set 6-2 and the match looked to be a simple task for his capable hands. This was far from the case, as he dropped his next set 7-6 losing harshly in the tiebreak 7-3, and then took the 3rd set to his second tiebreak of the day. This is where Liao's winning mentality showed, as after seemingly suffering an injury to his ankle and falling behind 5-6 in the tiebreak, he powered through and won 8-6. This handed the Tigers a memorable 4-3 win and comeback, giving them an excellent end to the ITA Indoor National Championships.
Up Next
The Tigers return to SCAC action as they face the McMurry University (TX) Warhawks at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday March 2, followed by an out of conference matchup against the East Texas Baptist University Tigers at 1:00 p.m.
