Trinity men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis traveled to Memphis, TN. for the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) tournament on April 25-26. Women\u2019s tennis defeated No. 22 Sewanee in the SAA final 4-1 to bring home the conference title. The championship also marks their fifth consecutive conference title. After skating past No. 36 Southwestern University 4-0, men\u2019s tennis fell short to No. 15 Sewanee, 4-3, in the final.<\/p>\n
Semifinal: Men\u2019s tennis vs. Southwestern, April 25<\/p>\n
The Tigers set the tone early against the Southwestern University Pirates in doubles play behind juniors Kishan Kersten and Jared Perry, who took their set 6-2 against Southwestern\u2019s Christo Langford and Joseph Snyman. Senior duo Aashish Dhanani and Conor Kaczmarczyk followed suit, winning 6-2 against the Pirates\u2019 Ashton Ellis and Landon Sosebee to hand Trinity the doubles point. The Tigers\u2019 point led to junior Ethan Flores and sophomore Roshin Kamath\u2019s set to go unfinished, setting up both teams for singles play.<\/p>\n
Kersten and Perry won to open singles play, extending Trinity\u2019s lead to 3-0, placing them on the verge of a championship match berth. Kamath edged out the Pirates\u2019 Nolan Alvarez 6-1, 7-5, giving the Tigers the overall win 4-0. The officials called the remaining matches, punching Trinity\u2019s ticket to the championship round.<\/p>\n
Head men\u2019s tennis coach Russell McMindes noted the adjustments the Pirates made and for the Tigers not \u201cto get overly complicated\u201d in preparation for the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always expect [Southwestern] to play well against us,\u201d McMindes said. \u201cIt\u2019s an important match, and they did. They played better than they played against us even a week ago. It was one we had to be ready for and then also be ready for any surges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Semifinal: Women\u2019s tennis vs. Rhodes, April 25<\/p>\n
Sophomores Katie Schmidt and Lauren Tin kicked things off for the Tigers against the Rhodes College Lynxes, winning their doubles set 6-1. The pair led the way for Trinity\u2019s doubles sweep, beginning the day with a 1-0 advantage over Rhodes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Tin\u2019s match in singles play helped the Tigers\u2019 momentum, winning 6-1, 6-0 against the Lynxes\u2019 Lily Higgins. Senior Trinity Levy\u2019s match against Sofia Rodriguez played out in similar fashion, defeating her in 6-1, 6-0 sets. Tin and Levy\u2019s match wins increased Trinity\u2019s lead to 3-0 with the game-clinching point in sight. Schmidt called the game for the Tigers, winning her match against Taylor Nash 6-0, 6-1 to win 4-0, sending Trinity to the SAA championship match.<\/p>\n
The remaining three games went unfinished with the Tigers\u2019 win secured. Their 4-0 result marks this their fifth consecutive shutout win against Rhodes.<\/p>\n
Final: Men\u2019s tennis vs. Sewanee, April 26<\/p>\n
Sewanee struck first, taking the doubles point in what would be a closely contested final. Dhanani and Kaczmarczyk dropped their set 6-0 and Kersten and Perry 6-2 to concede the doubles point to Sewanee, 1-0.<\/p>\n
Sewanee kept applying pressure on Trinity as Sewanee\u2019s Samuel Schroerlucke took the first game in singles play over Dhanani, 6-3, 6-1. Perry was able to put Trinity on the board with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Sewanee\u2019s Henry Hyden, cutting into Sewanee\u2019s lead 2-1. Kersten tied things up for the Tigers, winning his match to even up the finals with two points apiece. Sewanee did not let up, however, as Lucas Wrigley skidded past Flores 7-6, 6-4, giving Sewanee the 3-2 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the conference title came down to the wire, Trinity tied Sewanee 3-3 with Kamath\u2019s 6-0, 4-6, 7-5 win against Sewanee\u2019s Max Verellen. With the title-clinching point at stake for both teams, the final point came down to Trinity\u2019s sophomore Ryan Warren\u2019s match against Sewanee\u2019s Ben Lammert. Lammert won the set 6-7, 6-4, 6-3. Sewanee ultimately claimed the SAA crown, beating the Tigers 3-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always exciting when it comes down to the last match for a three or a four score line,\u201d McMindes said. \u201c[It\u2019s] obviously disappointing and didn\u2019t go our way. And for the first time in the new conference, you kind of wanted to be able to go in there with a splash and take care of business and kind of reestablish our identity within that conference, but it didn\u2019t happen. They were too good and pulled it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Final: Women\u2019s tennis vs. Sewanee, April 26<\/p>\n
Tigers opened doubles play in finals with closely contested sets. First-year Eva Kovachev and sophomore Allison Vo won their set 6-4 to give Trinity the early advantage against Sewanee. Junior Rosabella Andrade and Levy conceded their set against Mariella Congeni and Ivy Wilson, leaving it up to Schmidt and Tin to play a tie-breaking set. The sophomore duo edged out Sewanee\u2019s Emma Foster and Lucy Lee 7-6 (7-4) to give Trinity the doubles point 1-0.<\/p>\n
In singles play, Levy and Tin won their respective matches to inch the Tigers closer to their first SAA title with a 3-0 lead. Schmidt dropped her set against Emma Foster 2-6, 1-6, giving Sewanee their only point of the day, 3-1. Andrade took the title-clinching set against Harper High, 7-5, 6-3 to bring home the SAA conference championship, 4-1.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s tennis takes the at-large berth in the NCAA Division III tournament from their SAA win and await the committee\u2019s decision on their opponent while men\u2019s tennis awaits a potential playoff berth. The NCAA will announce that on May 4, with playoffs scheduled for May 8-10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trinity men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis traveled to Memphis, TN. for the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) tournament on April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-637660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}