SALEM, Mass. – While the spring season has not quite panned out as planned for UMass Boston Men's Tennis, the team has shown significant strides and improvements over the past couple of weeks as they have garnered more players to the roster and have inched closer to flipping the results in their favor.
That was on full display against the Little East Conference Regular Season Champion Salem State University on Saturday afternoon as the Beacons came within one match of upsetting the Vikings before getting ready to begin their title defense next Tuesday in the LEC Tournament.
THE BASICS
UMass Boston 4, Salem State University 5
UMass Boston (2-8, 2-4 LEC)
Salem State University (10-2, 6-0 LEC)
HOW IT HAPPENED
For the first time this season, junior transfer
Patrick Ramos and sophomore
Karsten Bourgoine competed with each other in the #1 Doubles but were ultimately defeated by graduate Andrew Muttiah and freshman Quentin Wilkins, 8-1. That would be the same final score in favor of the Vikings in the #3 Doubles as sophomore
Felix Nguyen and freshman
Ryan Tran were defeated by senior Cory Cherico and freshman Josh Gruber.
UMass Boston would take the #2 Doubles and head into the five singles matches trailing by a team score of 2-1 after freshman
Maxwell Dill and sophomore
Melvin Nina took down juniors Parker Anderoli and Kevin Merino-Rivas, 8-5.
Needing four wins for the victory, the Beacons would only be able to come up with three victories after Ramos defeated Muttiah in the #1 Singles with identical 6-1 set wins and Tran was victorious over Gruber in the #6 Singles by scores of 6-4 and 6-3. The third victory would come from Bourgoine in the #5 Singles over Merino-Rivas after the sophomore lost on tiebreaker in set one, 7-6, before coming back with 6-4 and 10-8 set wins.
However, the #2 through #4 Singles went in favor of the Vikings to secure their victory and undefeated regular season. Nina would fall to Cherico, 6-1 and 6-3, while Dill was defeated by Wilkins 6-1 and 6-0, and Nguyen dropped his match against Andreoli in straight 6-0 sets.
BY THE NUMBERS
- With another win on Saturday, Patrick Ramos is now 7-2 in singles this season
- Maxwell Dill and Melvin Nina are now 3-1 in LEC doubles matches this year and 3-2 overall
- After beginning 0-5 in singles, Maxwell Dill has taken three of his last five singles matches
- Salem State University snapped their five-game losing streak against UMass Boston with the victory
WHO'S NEXT
UMass Boston will prepare for the Little East Conference Tournament as the fifth seed next week, taking on fourth-seeded Bridgewater State University on Tuesday afternoon at a time to be determined. Earlier this season, the Beacons fell to the Bears, 7-2, on the road.
