WEYMOUTH, Mass.—#1 UMass Boston men's tennis jumped out to a 2-0 lead and never looked back, en-route to their fourth Little East Championship Match appearance in five seasons.
THE BASICS
#1 UMass Boston 5, #4 Bridgewater State University 2
(UMass Boston 9-7)
(Bridgwater State 6-7)
HOW IT HAPPENED
Just six days after playing each other in their regular-season finale, #1 UMass Boston followed a similar script to open the LEC Tournament.
The Beacons earned wins at second and third doubles to open the match and tacked on wins at first, third and fifth singles to earn a spot in Saturday's finals.
#1 UMass Boston will host #2 UMass Dartmouth in a rematch of the 2013 Little East Conference Finals. The two teams will play on Saturday at the Weymouth Club starting at 2 p.m.
The Beacons jumped out to a 2-0 lead in doubles, thanks to four players making their LEC Tournament debuts.
Guang Huang (Quincy, Mass.) and Ray Platteel (Holbrook, Mass.) opened the match with a dominant 8-1 win at third doubles.
Fellow rookies Tin Tran (Quincy, Mass.) and Onkgopotse Mokoka (Pretoria, South Africa) quickly made it 2-0 with an 8-2 win at second doubles.
Bridgewater State cut the deficit to 2-1 at first doubles. Chrs Jastrab and Matt McGee earned an early break, and held off Austin DeLasse (Mexico City, Mexico) and Alexander Comerchero (Brookline, Mass.) 8-6.
Comerchero pushed the lead back to two, when the freshman dominated Justin Haley 6-1, 6-3 at third singles.
DeLasse put the Beacons within a point of winning the match at first singles. The junior captain defeated McGee 6-4, 6-3 to make it 4-1 UMass Boston.
Bridgewater State staved off elimination with a win at second singles. Jastrab defeated sophomore Josh Bhasin (Tulsa, Okla.) 6-2, 6-3 to make it 4-2.
UMass Boston closed out the match at fifth singles. Singles specialist Sanshrut Sharma (Mumbai, India) defeated Alexander Belinsky 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, after blowing a 5-2 lead in the first set.
In the final two matches that did not finish, Bridgewater State led at fourth singles in the third set and the two teams were tied at one set apiece at sixth singles.
BY THE NUMBERS
- UMass Boston defeated Bridgewater State 7-2 this past Saturday. With the win, the Beacons earned their seven-straight win over the Bears and moved to 16-14 all-time.
- Sharma (7-0) and Comerchero (6-0) both stayed perfect in singles play against LEC opponents.
- #1 seeds have reached the LEC Championship match in every season since the conference changed the tournament format in 2009. Since 2010, the top seed has won every LEC Championship match.
WHO'S NEXT
#1 UMass Boston will host #2 UMass Dartmouth in Saturday's LEC Title Match. The Beacons defeated UMass Dartmouth 5-4 in the 2013 LEC Title Match and 9-0 during this year's regular season.
