SAN ANTONIO — The No. 44 St. Mary's Men's Tennis team suffered a defeat to cross-town rival NCAA Division III No. 7 Trinity University Friday at the St. Mary's Tennis Courts.
The Rattlers did not play their best doubles, falling at each position. The Trinity sweep put the Rattlers in a 0-3 hole heading into singles, leaving little room for error.
In singles, the Rattlers had bright spots, but it was not enough to overcome the starting deficit.
Winning matches for the Rattlers in straight sets for the second match in a row were senior Andrei Klipa and junior
Carlos Olea.
Klipa won a decisive 6-2, 6-1 over Trinity's Nicolas Moreno at the No. 1 position. Olea won at the No. 4 spot 6-4, 6-4 over Jordan Mayer.
At the No. 2 position, senior
Zachary Nicholson bounced back from a first-set loss to win the second set and third set deciding tiebreaker over Trinity's Greg Haugen for a final score of 1-6, 6-3, 1-0 (11-9).
In a similar situation, freshman
Jared Fellows recovered from a first-set defeat to win the second set, but was unable to close out the final tiebreaker, losing to Trinity's Erick Delafuente by a score of 6-1, 5-7, 1-0 (12-10).
At the No. 5 and No. 6 position the Rattlers did not fair well, losing in straight sets in both matches.
“This is a good team we played; it's hard to fall back 3-0 and recover,” said St. Mary's head tennis coach
Lisa Dausin. “We need to get some rest and correct some things before conference.”
The Rattlers move to 10-7 on the season with only three matches remaining before the Heartland Conference Tournament. The next match for the Rattlers will be against No. 24 Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas on Mon., April 1 at 12 p.m.
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 www.rattlerathletics.com.
