SAN ANTONIO — The No. 44 St. Mary's Men's Tennis team faced a tough pair of nationally ranked opponents this past week, falling to NJCAA No. 7 Laredo Community College 6-3 on Thursday, and crosstown rival No. 18 University of Incarnate Word, 7-2 on Saturday.
On Thursday, the Rattlers nearly swept the doubles, but fell just short of doing so, dropping to 1-2 going into singles. At the No. 1 position,
Zachary Nicholson (Sr., Bowie, Md.) and
Jared Fellows (Fr., Boerne, Texas) held a narrow lead for the majority of the match, but were unable to close, falling in a tie-breaker 9-8 (3).
In similar fashion, the No. 2 doubles team of
Matt Banner (Fr., Mason, Texas) and
Brien Galon (Fr., San Antonio) was serving with a lead at 6-5, but faltered as LCC's Caio Gomes and Luis Hernandez stormed back to win 8-6. The Rattlers' lone doubles victory came at the No. 3 position, where
Andrej Klipa (Sr., Belgrade, Serbia) and
Carlos Olea (Jr., Matamoros, Mexico) defeated LCC's team of Eman Esfandi and Julio Cepeda a commanding 8-3.
The Rattlers fought to regain the lead in singles, but were unable to do so as the top four positions were won in straight sets by LCC. On a positive note, a pair of freshman picked up the Rattlers' two singles points with Banner winning 6-2,6-1 at the No. 5 position and Galon taking a 6-3, 6-3 victory at the No. 6 spot.
On Saturday, the Rattlers fell into another 1-2 hole after doubles. This time, the freshman tandem of Banner and Galon held on to take an 8-4 victory at the No. 2 doubles position. The Rattlers could not fight off UIW in the other two doubles matches, falling 8-6 at No. 1 and 8-2 at the No. 3 position.
St. Mary's failed to bounce back in the singles, this time losing five of six positions. Again it was the freshman duo of Banner and Galon having the best results in singles play. At No. 5, Banner won the first set, but lost a closely contested match 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 to UIW's Luke Trautman. The Rattlers' lone singles victory of the day came at the No. 6 position, where Galon held on to take a 6-3, 6-7 (4), 10-7 victory over UIW's Aiden Deleon.
“These teams exploited our weaknesses well,” head coach
Lisa Dausin said. “I'm never excited to lose, but I think our guys see how close we are; this is a good wakeup call before we start conference play.”
St. Mary's falls to 3-3 heading into this weekend's road trip to play Division I opponent University of Texas-Pan American on Friday. They will also face NAIA foe University of the Southwest on Saturday. Both matches will be played in Edinberg, Texas at the UT-Pan American facilities.
St. Mary's University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men's basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men's golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men's golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary's also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary's student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit rattlerathletics.com
