Men's Tennis Kicks Off Spring Break Trip with 6-1 Win

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Despite being interrupted by a spring storm in the area, the St. Mary's Men's Tennis team got its Spring Break trip off to a good start with a 6-1 victory over Eckerd College on Monday afternoon.
 
StMU (7-4) started things off by winning the doubles point as both the duos of juniors Jake Faryniarz (San Antonio) and Nicolas Llosa (Lima, Peru) at No. 2 and freshman Aaron Ben Anton (Remseck, Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany) and senior Sebastian Azcui (La Paz, Bolivia) at No. 3 by identical 6-3 scores for the 1-0 team lead.
 
The showers came through as the top three ladder positions were in action and after the break, sophomore Daniel Matheu Baldor (Madrid, Spain) won 6-0, 6-4 at No. 3 to double the Rattlers lead. Junior Ryan Koth pulled out the 7-4 win in the second-set tiebreaker for his straight-sets success at No. 2 to stretch the lead to 3-0.
 
Eckerd won its lone point at No. 1 singles. Sophomore Alvaro Soler (Alicante, Spain) jumped out to the 6-1 lead, but Batu Ataseven was able to turn the tables after the delay to win 6-2, 7-5 in the next two sets.
 
As the last three ladder spots took to the courts, the Rattlers kept the momentum going. Junior Oskar Irdoja (Tallinn, Estonia) dropped only three games at #4, winning 6-2, 6-1, while Llosa lost only one game at #6 in a 6-0, 6-1 victory.
 
Trailing 4-1 in the international doubles tiebreaker, Faryniarz won the next nine points to win 10-4 in the deciding set and cement the 6-1 win for the Rattlers (6-0, 3-6, 10-4).
 
The Rattlers take Tuesday off from action, then play Bentley on Wednesday at 11 a.m., St. Thomas Aquinas on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. and Palm Beach Atlantic on Friday at Noon to wrap up the trip.