Men's Tennis
Men's Tennis Drops Third 5-4 Match of the Year
Game Summary
The Bethel College men’s and women’s tennis teams traveled to Spring Arbor University on Tuesday afternoon to take on the Cougars in MCC action. In a marathon day of tennis, the Pilots were unable to secure victory in either contest. The Lady Pilots dropped a hard-fought 7-2 decision that was much closer than the final score would indicate while the Bethel men fell in a 5-4 heartbreaker. The losses leave the men with a 1-5 overall season record (0-4 MCC), while the ladies now stand 4-3 for the season (2-3 MCC).
The men began play with doubles where Bethel took two of three matches. At number one, Alex Tsikouris and Stephen Ward played some of their best tennis of the season thus far in securing an 8-5 win. At number two, Nathan Baker and Robby Hamman earned an 8-6 victory for the Pilots to take a 2-1 lead going into singles play. The Cougars won matches at numbers one through three to assume a 4-2 advantage before Bethel rallied behind Robby Hamman (#4 singles) and Joe Rallo (#5 singles) to tie the score at 4-4. The deciding point came from the six singles position where Bethel’s Rosten Hamman split the first two sets before coming up short in the third set despite a great effort.
“This was a tough one for the team as it was the third 5-4 loss this year,” stated Bethel coach, John Natali. “Spring Arbor played really well, and so did we. Our number one and two doubles teams were outstanding today. And in singles, Nathan gave their number one all he could handle before falling. In fact, all of our singles players left everything out on the court today but unfortunately just came up a little short.”
The Bethel men and women will try to rebound on Friday, September 25th when they will host the University of St. Francis (IL) at home on the Bethel College courts. The men will begin at 2:30pm with the ladies following at 4:00pm.
