BEAVERTON, Ore. – Demonstrating that they
are not yet ready to relinquish their claim to Northwest Conference
men's tennis supremacy, the Whitman College Missionaries
dispatched the upstart George Fox University Bruins 8-1 to break a
tie for first between the two Saturday night here at the Tualatin
Hills Tennis Center's main indoor courts.
Whitman, ranked No. 13 in the NCAA Division III and No. 6 in the
West Region, took the No. 1 and 3 doubles in quick fashion. Andrew
La Cava and Sam Sadeghi downed the Bruins' Shawn Aldrich and
Chris Lilley 8-2 at No. 1, and Colton Malesovas
and Steven Roston dispatched Preston Mann and Drew Milton 8-1 at
No. 3.
The No. 2 doubles, though, went down to the wire. Justin
McClain and Peter Brown of George Fox, which is ranked No. 11 in
the West Region, were up 6-3 and then 7-6 over Andy Riggs and Matt
Tesmond, with McClain serving for the match. The Whitman duo
broke back, however, and went up 8-7 on their own serve.
Brown served the Bruins to a win to even it 8-8, but the
Missionaries secured a sweep of the doubles by winning the
tiebreaker 7-3.
The Missionaries took five of the six singles in straight sets,
but the No. 3 singles was a down-to-the-wire nailbiter between
Lilley and Sadeghi that took over two hours to play. Lilley
captured the opening set 7-6 (7-5) before Sadeghi evened it with a
6-2 win. Sadeghi took a 3-1 lead in the tiebreaker before
Lilley rallied to go up 6-4. It was 8-8 when Lilley broke the
final tie by returning Sadeghi's serve to his backhand with a
drop-volley that the Missionary hit into the net as he raced
forward. Lilley then finished off the win after a long rally
with a sideline angled shot for the 10-8 tiebreaker that gave the
Bruins their only win.
In the other singles, it was Malesovas over McClain 6-3, 6-1 at
No. 1; La Cava over Aldrich 6-2, 6-2; Roston over Mann 6-4, 6-1 at
No. 4; Riggs over Milton 6-1, 6-2 at No. 5; and Noah Lee over Brown
6-1, 6-4 at No. 6.
“Not all the scores reflect the closeness of the
competition,” said George Fox head coach Neal Ninteman.
“We battled them all the way. A 'clash of the
titans', I'd call it. We're certainly
looking forward to playing them again.”
George Fox fell to 3-3 overall and 3-1 in the conference, while
Whitman improved to 4-1 overall and 4-0 in the NWC. The
Missionaries earlier in the day had drawn even with Bruins by
defeating Lewis & Clark College 9-0.
NEXT: George Fox host Linfield College Sunday
at 2:00 p.m. at the GFU campus courts … Whitman is off until
Friday, hosting the University of Puget Sound at 4:00 p.m.
