GRANVILLE, Ohio – Facing off with the No. 13 ranked team in the country in the form of Denison University, the Capital University men's tennis team dropped their match 9-0 on Saturday morning.
Denison came into the match with the national ranking under the belt and several players featured in the top-25 within the central region, thus making the match that much more difficult for the Comets – who now fall to 6-10 overall this year. Despite the daunting challenge in front of them, Capital played strongly all morning.
"I am so proud of today's effort," said head coach
Cody Hurley. "Our entire line-up left it all out there on a big stage and represented what our program is all about."
At first doubles, the pairing of
Leonardo Abreu and
Alex Stout took on the number one ranked doubles pairing in the region in Tim Cianciola and Jack Bulger. There, Abreu and Stout battled them tough, even trailing as closely as 4-3 midway through the set, before the Big Red duo took the final four games for the match.
Elsewhere in doubles, the second doubles team of
Spencer Surles and
Colin Welch dropped their match with Andy Mackler and Colin Gramley by a score of 8-0. In third doubles,
Jesse Stevens and
Aaron Askew also fell 8-0 to the Denison duo of Archie Turner and Blake Eason.
Moving into singles action, Abreu took to first singles, battling Cianciola – the number two player in the central region. There, Abreu managed to take three games of Cianciola, falling 6-2, 6-1.
At second singles, Stout matched up with Marc-Lennart Harms from Denison – the number 23 ranked player in the ITA central rankings. Like Abreu, Stout was able to take a couple games, but ultimately fell 6-2, 6-0.
The three through six singles matches all went to Denison (14-1 overall) via shutout fashion. At third singles,
Colin Welch was knocked off by Blake Eason, in fourth singles,
Jesse Stevens lost to Milan Gonela, fifth singles went to Nadeem Jones over
Aaron Askew, and sixth singles ended in favor of Denison's Joseph Boyle after
Jack Schwarz was forced to retire his match in the first set, trailing 5-0.
MORE FROM COACH HURLEY
"Leonardo and Alex both played tremendous tennis against one of the best teams in the country. They both rose to the challenge and produced the best tennis I've yet to see from them. To me, that speaks volumes about who they are as competitors, and how much they've progressed from when they first arrived on campus in the fall."
"Overall, I am very pleased with today's performance and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's match with Otterbein!"
UP NEXT
The Comets will take to the court tomorrow morning as they battle Otterbein in the Crosstown Rivalry Match-up at 11 a.m. The match will be presented by Byers Airport Subaru.
