Notables
-Third-ever win over Saint John's, second victory in the last three meetings
-Second straight time the Saints win a dual by a third-set super-breaker in the final match
VIRGINIA, Minn. (
csssaints.com) – For the second straight weekend, the St. Scholastica men's tennis team earned a tight 5-4 victory over a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) school, defeating Saint John's University on Sunday at the Virginia Indoor Tennis Club.
Doubles:
The Saints fell behind early, dropping two of the three doubles matches. The lone pair to win was the No. 2 team of
Brendan Boudreau (Thunder Bay, Ontario/Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate) and
Makar Grytsevych (Lviv, Ukraine/Lviv Linguistic Gymnasium (King)) by an 8-6 score.
Singles:
By dropping two of the three doubles matches, the Saints needed to win four of the six singles matches to capture the dual.
Boudreau remained perfect on the season with a straight sets win at the No. 3 spot 6-2, 6-4. CSS dropped a match at the No. 6 spot in a third set super-breaker to give the Johnnies a 3-2 lead.
The Saints were then on the right-end of third set super-breakers in the next two matches.
Serhii Tykhonenko (Kiev, Ukraine/Lyceum #100 “Podil”) rallied to win at the No. 1 spot 2-6, 6-3, (10-1).
Ernesto Telles (El Salvador/Academia Britanica Cuscatleca), who had the deciding victory against Concordia College-Moorhead last Saturday, then won at the No. 2 spot by scores of 7-5, 2-6, (10-6) to give the Saints a 4-3 lead in the dual.
Saint John's responded with a win in straight sets at the No. 4 spot to set up the winner-take-all match at No. 5.
Logan Engelstad (Thief River Falls, Minn./Lincoln HS) dropped the first set 6-2, but responded to take the second set 6-2. The match would be decided by a third set, 10-point super-breaker.
Engelstad jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the breaker, but the Johnnies tied it at 5-5. Engelstad then rattled off five consecutive points to take the match 10-5 and give the Saints the 5-4 dual victory.
Up Next:
The Saints (2-0) will face St. Olaf College next Saturday in Owatonna.
