BOSTON, Mass.—Seniors Jack Wang (Suzhou, China), Vlad Leopard (Carnikava, Latvia) and Zeke Hernandez (Baytown, Texas) combined to go 4-0, as UMass Boston men's tennis earned an 8-1 win over Bridgewater State University on Senior Day.
THE BASICS
UMass Boston 8, Bridgewater State University 1
(UMass Boston 6-10, Little East 4-1)
(Bridgewater State 3-6, Little East 0-4)
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Beacons took a 2-1 lead after doubles play and then swept the singles to move to 4-1 in Little East Conference action.
UMass Boston honored their three seniors before the match. With the win, the trio ensured that they will be playing in their third-straight LEC Tournament and the program will be making it's fifth-consecutive appearance.
Wang and Adhirath Bhatotia cruised to an 8-1 win at second doubles to start the match, but that would be the only blowout in doubles.
After falling behind 7-6 on court three, Hernandez and Guang Huang (Quincy, Mass.) fought back to win their final three games, to earn a 9-7 win over Alex Belinsky and Andrew Narciso.
UMass Boston's top pair of Austin DeLasse (Mexico City, Mexico) and Josh Bhasin (Tulsa, Okla.) nearly pulled off a similar comeback. The duo went out to a good start, but ended up trailing 7-6. They fought back to take the next two games, but dropped game 16 to forced a tiebreaker (8-8). In the tiebreaker, Bridgewater State's Matt McGree and Chris Jastrab went out to an early lead and held on for a 9-8 (8-6) win.
The Beacons quickly pushed the lead to 3-1 moments later, as the two teams started their sixth singles match at the same time as doubles. Leopard held off Zachary Mutti 6-4, 6-2 in a lengthy match.
Wang made it a perfect 4-0 for the Beacons' seniors with a win at third singles. The senior swept Justin Haley 6-0, 6-0 in his 100th collegiate match as a Beacon.
Sophomore Sanshrut Sharma (Mumbai, India) clinched the match victory at fifth singles, as the sophomore cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 win.
Bhatotia made it 6-1 Beacons with a victory at fourth singles, as he knocked off Mike Delisle 6-2, 6-3.
DeLasse avenged his doubles loss to McGee, with a 6-4, 6-2 win at number one singles.
In the final match of the day, Bhasin knocked off Jastrab 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).
BY THE NUMBERS
- After dropping their LEC opener, UMass Boston has won four conference matches in a row. The Beacons are 19-4 in the LEC Regular Season over the past four seasons, with three of their four losses coming against the University of Southern Maine.
- Wang becomes the sixth player in program history to play in at least 100 matches as a Beacon. He stands one match shy of tying Tom Savoie ('91) for fifth in program history.
- The Beacons have won 24 of 30 singles matches in conference play (80 percent), including all six singles matches in back-to-back matches.
WHO'S NEXT
UMass Boston will travel to Endicott College on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in the Beacons final non-conference match of the season.
