THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - On a beautiful California day, the Cal Lutheran men's tennis team opened the season with a pair of matches. In the morning, the Kingsmen swept past Hope International, 9-0, before facing a tough NAIA No. 24 San Diego Christian team, falling 5-4 in the night cap.
The day started with a pair of doubles victories from Moises Cardenas and Fergus Scott over Mauricio Mosquera and Anthony Sena by an 8-2 margin at No. 1 and an 8-1 win at No. 2 from Connor Treacy and Jesse Knight who defeated Thiago Brito and Michael Maiolo. The third was forfeited by HIU, thus allowing CLU to take an early 3-0 lead.
In singles action, Andrew Slater and Dat Le each made his CLU debut. A. Slater played at No. 2 and took down Brito 6-0, 6-2 and Le won 6-0, 6-1 over Cody Walker.
At No. 1 Ian Slater started his junior season with a victory over Mosquera in the closest match of the morning as he won 6-4, 6-1.
Additionally, Scott and Knight went on to win at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively, both turning in scores of 6-2, 6-0.
After a short break, the Kingsmen returned to the courts to face San Diego Christian. Though the Hawks are a fairly new program, they have quickly climbed in the NAIA ranks and currently sit at No. 24.
Cal Lutheran nearly knocked them off, falling just short. A strong start from the doubles teams put CLU at an early 2-1 advantage. Knight and Treacy were the No. 2 duo and earned the first point of the day for the Kingsmen with an 8-6 victory. At No. 3, the Slater brothers teamed up for the first time wearing Violet and Gold and pieced together an 8-3 win.
Singles action featured a huge win from Cardenas at No. 1 against Brendan Aguilar. The CLU senior fell behind after the first set, but came back to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 for his first individual point of the year.
While SDC swept through the middle of the line-up, stealing No. 2,3,4 and 5, in his first Cal Lutheran match, Gio Valdez pulled out a 6-0, 6-2 victory at No. 6.
Cal Lutheran (1-1) hits the road on Wednesday, Feb. 11 when the Kingsmen travel to Westmont for a 1:00 p.m. first serve.
Results: CLU 9, HIU 0
Results: SDC 5, CLU 4
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