Emotional, back-and-forth "Battle of Saints" goes to SEU

By Ruben Dominguez | St. Mary's Athletics Communications

SAN ANTONIO — On a day that would end up deciding the Heartland Conference Men's Tennis regular-season title, the St. Mary's Men's Tennis team put up a valiant effort, but ultimately fell short, losing to St. Edward's 6-3 Tuesday afternoon at Rohrbach Stadium.

Both sides came into the affair with undefeated records in conference play and only one spot separating them in the ITA national ranking with SEU coming in 34th and StMU right behind at 35th.

A win would have provided the first Heartland championship in the program's history for the Snakes, and they looked to be on the right track after taking the majority of doubles.

Michael Maciel and Matt Banner dropped an early one to SEU's Patrick Clynes and Maximo Agoglia, 8-2, at No. 2, but the St. Mary's No. 3 team of Richie Foley and Josh Mosseri evened up the match with their 8-4 win over Davor Ivkovic and Sotiris Tsioumas.

So it came down to the No. 1 match where Adam Dockery and Brien Galon were in a seesaw battle with Felix Bake and Ricardo Pineda. The tandem broke the Hilltoppers with the score knotted at 7-7 and held to win the match by a 9-7 score line.

With the lead heading into singles, the Rattlers would only need a split of the matches to seize the conference regular-season crown, but it was not to be as the Hilltoppers took five of six to take the victory.

SEU evened up the match count as Pineda defeated StMU's Aldo Maldonado by a score of 6-1, 6-2 at No. 3. No. 1 Michael Maciel had similar luck as he lost to Clynes by a score of 6-4, 6-1.

The lone singles victory came by way of Dockery, who was in complete control of Bake after taking the first set 6-3 and leading 3-1 in the second before the Hilltopper No. 2 retired due to injury.

The win would not be enough as Foley fell shortly thereafter to Agoglia, 6-1, 6-2 to put SEU in a position to need only one win to clinch the win. That win would come in a close affair at No. 5 as Tsioumis battled with the Snakes' Galon and gave his side the win and the regular season title with his 6-3, 7-6 (3) victory.

With the match settled, Mosseri fought on in his tight match with Ivkovic. The longest match of the day was the only three-set contest. The competitors both won their respective sets 6-3, with the latter taking the first, but Ivkovic proved to be too much as Mosseri dropped the last set 7-5 to end the match.

In the loss, the Rattlers dropped to 7-9 on the year and 4-1 in conference matches. The No. 35 Rattlers will now turn their focus to the Heartland Conference tournament where they will assume the second seed in the competition.

The tournament will take place in Dallas at the Kiest Tennis Center beginning on April 24.

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Players Mentioned

Matt Banner: 5' 11"; Junior

Brien Galon: 5' 8"; Junior

Michael Maciel: 5' 7"; Sophomore

Adam Dockery: 5' 8"; Sophomore

Aldo Maldonado: Freshman

Players Mentioned

Matt Banner
: 5' 11"; Junior

Brien Galon
: 5' 8"; Junior

Michael Maciel
: 5' 7"; Sophomore

Adam Dockery
: 5' 8"; Sophomore

Aldo Maldonado
: Freshman

St. Mary's University Athletics

Scoreboard

Emotional, back-and-forth "Battle of Saints" goes to SEU

Players Mentioned

Matt Banner

Brien Galon

Michael Maciel

Adam Dockery

Aldo Maldonado

Players Mentioned

Matt Banner

Brien Galon

Michael Maciel

Adam Dockery

Aldo Maldonado

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