Men's Tennis Sweeps Cross Town Foe

SAN ANTONIO – After taking 12 days off from competition, the St. Mary's Men's Tennis team returned to action with a vengeance, sweeping Our Lady of the Lake 7-0 on Friday afternoon.
 
Six of the Rattlers nine victories have come the way of the sweep this spring as the team improves to 9-0. The team will host the alumni tomorrow with festivities beginning at 10 a.m. before embarking on another long road trip beginning on Wednesday, March 9 against Grand Valley State in Pensacola, Fla.
 
As they've done all season, the Rattlers set the tone early by winning the doubles point. Senior Chad Nguyen (College Station, Texas) and junior Sebastian Azcui (La Paz, Bolivia) won 6-3 at No. 1 and the pair of sophomore Jake Faryniarz (San Antonio) and freshman Mario Urdaneta (Houston) won 6-2 at No. 3.
 
The duo of sophomores Nicolas Llosa (Lima, Peru) and Oskar Irdoja (Tallinn, Estonia) won a hard-fought tiebreaker set for the sweep. The pair won 7-6 (6-4) to flip the match to singles action.
 
Llosa dropped only one game at No. 4 in winning his seventh-straight singles match, 6-0, 6-1. Faryniarz won 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 to improve to 5-1 in duals and both freshman Alvaro Soler (Alicante, Spain) and Azcui won at #5 and 6 by identical scores of 6-2, 6-4.
 
Nguyen needed a late break of serve in the first set and then broke a couple of times in the second set for the 7-5, 6-3 win at No. 1. Irdoja won a 7-1 tiebreaker in the first set, but dropped the second set 6-1 at No. 3. In the tiebreaker set, Irdoja got a late break for the 11-9 victory and the team sweep.