NEWBERG, Ore. - Although the George Fox
University Bruins came close in several matches, only Scott
Barnett at No. 1 singles was able to finally break through
for a win against No. 25-ranked Whitman College as the Missionaries
took a closer-than-expected 8-1 win over the Bruins in a Northwest
Conference men's tennis match Monday afternoon here at the
GFU campus courts.
The match began with two tightly-contested doubles. At No.
1, the Bruins' Juan and Pedro Munoz battled back from a 6-2
deficit to tie the match 6-all before finally succumbing 8-6 to the
Missionaries' Conor Holton-Burke and Thomas Roston. At
No. 2, Barnett and Nick Jenness led Whitman's Adriel
Borshansky and Matt Tesmond most of the way before the visiting duo
pulled out a 9-8 (7-4) win. The Missionaries had relatively
little trouble at No. 3 as Sam Sadeghi and David Deming cruised
past Matthew Gardner and Luke Pritchard 8-1.
Barnett and Holton-Burke staged a down-to-the-wire thriller in
the top singles match. Barnett edged by in the first set 7-5
before Holton-Burke evened the match with a 6-2 win in the second
set. In a ten-point tiebreaker, Barnett took a 9-8 lead
before outlasting his opponent in a final long rally to win
10-8.
Whitman took the rest of the matches, but not without a fight in
several of them. Sadeghi downed Juan Munoz 6-0, 6-3 at No. 2;
Roston defeated Jenness 6-4, 6-2 at No. 3; Borshansky stopped Pedro
Munoz 6-3, 6-2 at No. 4; Tesmond toppled Gardner 6-4, 6-2 at No. 5;
and Deming blanked Josh Williford 6-0, 6-0 at No. 6.
George Fox (3-8, NWC 2-8) heads for California toward the end of
the week as spring break approaches, with four matches on tap in
the Golden State. The Bruins' first contest will be at
La Sierra University on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Whitman (11-1,
NWC 10-0), which was also playing at Linfield College Monday
afternoon with a split squad, next visits Pacific University
Tuesday at 4:00 p.m.
