Mens Tennis continued its upswing this spring, picking up their fourth straight win in a 7-0 sweep over the United States Coast Guard Academy. This is Brandeis third straight home victory, after defeating Clark University on Saturday 6-1. USCGA was so undermanned that their squad had both males and females aboard.
The match started off with the doubles team of Sam Jonas 07/Jordan Beiber 07 demolishing the USCGA combo of Matt Nakagawa/Ryan Beck 8-2, and it did not get better for the USCGA.
Scott Schulman 09/Michael Volfovich 07 clinched a doubles point with an 8-1 victory while Hart Comess-Daniels 06/Chris Hersel 06 shut down their opponents, 8-4 to complete the doubles sweep.
The singles matches started off with Sam Jonas taking the first set in a 7-5 grinder before settling down and dominating the second set 6-2.
The only one who could beat me out here was me. So I kind of had to focus myself and really sort of give it to them in the second set. Jonas told The Hoot after the game.
Vulfovich dropped the first set 3-6 in the second match but bounced back to take the next two sets 6-3 and 7-6 to force a fourth set, which saw Vulfovich triumph 7-5. Bieber clinched the Brandeis victory, defeating USCGAs Cheryl Hickey 6-3, 7-5.
When asked about how he felt, Beiber responded that he felt good in the beginning and then I lost my focus but luckily, I got it back in the end.
Schulman (6-2, 6-0) and Hersel (6-3, 6-1) easily defeated their opponents, while Cliff Silverman 07 wrapped up the sweep with a hard fought victory over Thomas Brittingham 7-6, (7-4), 7-5.
Their victory over USCGA showed traits that were similar to their performance against Clark. At times the focus was shaky but, by in large, they pull through.
Brandeis started strong last Saturday, with Jonas crushing Anuj Ladha in two sets 6-0, 6-2 and Volfovich doing the same to the unfortunate Nikola Milinkovic 6-2, 6-0.
The third game was an example of perseverance. After dropping the first set 2-6, Silverman won the next set 6-2 but in the third set, down 1-5, he managed to roar back and took the third set 7-6 before clinching the match with a 7-2 decision in the fourth set.
The rest of game went smoothly for Brandeis with Schulman (7-5, 6-2) and Comess-Daniels (6-1, 6-3) taking the fourth and fifth matches. The lone loss came in the last match, where rookie Derek Tesser 09 fell in three competitive sets, including a super-tiebreaker in the last one: 6-3, 6-7, 8-10.
Coach Ben Lamanna was happy, though reserved, about his teams progress. As he stated on Monday, Good match, took care of business. He did point out that Brandeis still has a ways to go with a tough match against 9th-ranked Wheaton on Thursday the 23rd, after which they have some time to prepare for the trip to Wellesley to take on Babson on the 29th.
For a team that started off with no wins and a new coach, having four in a row is very nice.
