THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - In a battle between the No. 23 and No. 24 teams in country, according to the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Poll that was released on March 12, the visiting Trinity (Conn.) squad topped Cal Lutheran 8-1 at the Poulson Tennis Center as part of their West Coast trip.
Although the doubles points all went to Trinity, the No. 1 duo of Moises Cardenas and Jesse Knight battled to a tiebreaker before falling 9-7. At No. 3 Oliver Thornton and Gio Valdez gave Ned Mandel and Jagger Riefler a run for their money despite dropping the set 8-5. The No. 2 pair of Fergus Scott and Andrew Slater was defeated 8-3.
Once singles started, Trinity earned the first two singles points that went to completion and stole the match, but the Violet and Gold put up a tough fight, sending six total sets into tiebreakers.
The lone CLU point of the afternoon came from Scott whose identical scores of 7-6 included 7-5 tiebreakers to win at No. 2.
Valdez and Slater forced third set tiebreakers at No. 3 and No. 6, respectively. Valdez fell 4-6, 6-2, 1-0 (10-7) and Slater came out on the short end of 6-0, 7-6 (7-5), 1-0 (10-7) meeting with Kyle Scheffers. On the No. 5 court, Knight played to a tiebreaker in the second set after dropping the first 6-4 and coming back to force extra time in a 7-6 (7-4) loss.
Cal Lutheran (5-7) will be back on the courts on Friday afternoon, March 20, when the Kingsmen return to Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) action to host Chapman for a 2:00 p.m. serve at home.
Results: TRIN 8, CLU 1
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