NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - After seven-plus hours and temperatures rising into the 100s, the first day of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Men's Tennis Championship was completed as Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps advanced to Saturday's championship final. Though the top two seeds advanced to the final, Friday wasn't without an upset as No. 5 Whittier had a wild 5-4 win over No. 4 Redlands during the first round.
With play split between the Poulson Tennis Center in Thousand Oaks and the Matador Tennis complex on the campus of Cal State Northridge, the Stags got the day going with a 5-1 victory over Caltech. CMS won the first two doubles pairings thanks to victories from Warren Wood and Joe Dorn in the No. 1 match and Daniel Morkovine and Zhenya Pereverzin in the No. 2. The Beavers were able to salvage a point however as Devashish Joshi and Luka Mernik picked up an 8-6 victory in the No. 3 pairing. Up 2-1, CMS was able to get to the clinching five points after singles wins from Wood and Rohan Shankar.
Pomona-Pitzer swept past Occidental in its first round match up, beating the Tigers 5-0. Jonathan Kim and Sam Crawford teamed up to win the No. 1 doubles game 9-7 while Spencer Simonides and Kevin Wei were victorious in the No. 2 and Connor Sutton and Jake Yasgoor won the No. 3.
Cal Lutheran was also perfect in its opening round, downing Chapman 5-0. CLU's No. 1 doubles duo of Alex Nichols and Connor Treacy got the Kingsmen's first point of the day when they won 8-2. Cal Lutheran would go on to win the next two doubles matches before Ian Slater won 6-0, 6-2 in the No. 5 singles and Fergus Scott clinched the match with a 6-2, 6-1 victory in the No. 6.
In the wildest match of the day, Whittier was able to top Redlands with all but one singles match needing a tie-breaker. Down 4-2 midway through the match, Troy Chavez started the Poet rally with a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 victory in the No. 4 singles pairing. Keeping the momentum going, Mark Anthony Kenny won the No. 5 singles match 7-6, 7-6 and Chris Schommer completed the comeback with a marathon 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 victory.
As the tournament transitioned to the semifinals, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps continued its march to a ninth straight SCIAC championship as it defeated Whittier 8-1. The Stags picked up a big No. 2 doubles win from Skyler Butts and Neel Kotrappa and a clinching singles wins from Nikolas Marino in the No. 3 game. A highlight for the Poets was No. 1 singles player David Konstantinov upsetting No. 1 ranked Wood 6-0, 4-6, 6-2.
In the other semifinal, Pomona-Pitzer just edged Cal Lutheran 6-3. Nichols and Treacy were again victorious in the No. 1 doubles match but the Sagehens were able to swing the momentum of the match with wins in the No. 2 and 3 games that required extra points. In the No. 2 grouping, Crawford and Kim were able top Moises Cardenas and Scott 9-8 and Graham Maassen and Connor Hudson just got past Slater and Jesse Knight 9-7. During singles, Yasgoor, Maassen, Kim and Bello were all victorious, helping Pomona-Pitzer into the final.
In the second round game between Caltech and Redlands, the Bulldogs took a 2-1 lead after doubles. Max Licona and Teddy Jones won the No. 1 pairing 8-4 while Teddy Burchett and Jake Ly took the No. 3 8-3. The Beavers were again able to salvage a point during doubles as Rushikesh Joshi and Morgan Lebby won the No. 2 9-8. Redlands would respond with singles victories from Patrick Lipscomb, Parker Wilson, Tom Suchodolski, Licona and Jones. For Caltech, Lebby would earn the second point of the match when he won the No. 4 singles game 6-3, 6-3.
Capping the day was a four-hour match between Chapman and Occidental. The Panthers gained a 2-1 advantage after doubles with Charlie Werman and Brett Buford winning the No. 1 match-up 8-5. CU's No. 2 duo of Sam Mittledorf and Justin Thompson were also victorious, winning 8-6. The Tigers got a point back however in the No. 3 game with Avery Chernin and Trevor Brown winning 9-8. After Chapman went up 3-1 due to an Occidental injury, the Tigers would even the match after Josh Dancu won the No. 1 singles game 6-1, 6-1 and Jeremy Kirchoff took the No. 6 6-2, 6-0. Despite the late charge, Werman would give the Panthers the decisive point, winning the No. 2 singles pairing 7-6, 7-5.
CMS and Pomona-Pitzer will square off for the SCIAC Championship at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday at Cal State Northridge. The third place game between Cal Lutheran and Whittier will be held in Thousand Oaks at the same time. The other two matches will be held at CSUN at 10:00 a.m.
2014 SCIAC Tournament Central
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