THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - The Cal Lutheran men's tennis team split a pair of non-conference matches on Saturday afternoon at Poulson Tennis Center, falling to Skidmore (N.Y.) 6-3 before sweeping Pacific Lutheran 9-0.
In the first match of the day, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) No. 24 ranked Kingsmen took on the No. 27 Skidmore Thoroughbreds and fell behind early 2-1 after the doubles portion of the match. Moises Cardenas and Jesse Knight dropped a close 8-6 match at No. 1 and the Thoroughbreds picked up an 8-4 win at No. 2. Gio Valdez and Andrew Slater salvaged a win at No. 3 with an 8-6 victory over the pair of Steve Koulouris and Ted Burkowitz.
Cardenas defeated Kai Yuen Leung 7-5, 6-4 at No. 1 singles and Thornton came away with a 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 victory at No. 4 against Lucas Pickering, but Skidmore won the other four singles matches to complete a 6-3 victory.
In the second match of the day, the Kingsmen faired much better against Pacific Lutheran and completed a 9-0 sweep for the second time this season.
The duo of Cardenas and Knight got CLU off to a good start with an 8-4 win at No. 1 doubles and Fergus Scott was joined by Jesper Lunding-Johansson, making his season debut, to win 8-3 at No. 2. Slater and Valdez paired up for their second doubles win off the day with an 8-1 win at No. 3 and the Kingsmen took an early 3-0 lead.
In singles competition, the Violet and Gold kept their foot on the gas and cruised to six wins to wrap up the sweep. Cardenas won his second singles match of the day with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Sam Stadter at No. 1 and Scott completed a 6-4, 6-0 win at No. 2 while Valdez, Knight, Slater and Lucas Tilly each won their singles match for CLU.
Cal Lutheran (7-8) will continue non-conference action at Poulson Tennis Center tomorrow Sunday, Mar. 22 against Tufts (Mass.) at 1:00 p.m.
Box Score: SC 6, CLU 3
Box Score: CLU 9, PLU 0
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