April 14, 2010
Box Score
SWARTHMORE, PA - The 10th-ranked Johns Hopkins men's tennis team defeated host Swarthmore, 8-1, on Wednesday afternoon to take sole possession of first place in the Centennial Conference. The Blue Jays win their 35th straight conference match and improve to 13-4 on the season and 6-0 in the Centennial. The Garnet, suffering their first conference loss of 2010, fall to 6-9 overall and 5-1 in the conference.
Hopkins took control of the match early by sweeping all three doubles to take a 3-0 lead. Junior Casey Blythe (Louisville, KY/Xavier) and sophomore Jacob Barnaby (Phoenix, AZ/Desert Vista) lost just one game in beating Mark Wee and Maxwell Bressman at second. Freshman Andy Hersh (Valrico, FL/Newsome) and junior Ryan Rauck (Columbus, OH/Bexley) then won 8-4 at third over James Wieler and Malikm Mubeen. Senior David Maldow (Jericho, NY/Jericho) and junior Andrew Wang (Sparta, NJ/Sparta) defeated Stephen Youngblood and Zak Kelm, 8-5, at first.
In singles action, the Blue Jays won five of six singles matches to take the win. Wang won 6-3, 6-4 at second over Kelm for his 17th consecutive conference win. Bressman picked up the Garnet's lone point of the match with a 6-3, 6-2 win at fourth over Barnaby. Hersh won in straight sets at third, beating Wee, 7-5, 6-4 and improving to 16-3 on the season. At fifth and sixth, senior Peter Vale (Haverford, PA/Episcopal) and freshman Morgan Dauer (Lloyd Harbor, NY/Cold Spring Harbor) won by identical 6-4, 7-5 scores. Vale beat Mubeen at fifth, while Dauer's win came over Wieler, and was his eighth straight. The match wrapped up at first singles, which was decided in three sets. Youngblood took the first set over Maldow, 6-3. But the 2009 Centennial Conference Player of the Year rallied to win the second and third sets, 6-4, 6-4, and take the match. The win was his 24th career conference win, leaving him one shy of tying the Hopkins record, held by Kevin Alford '03.
Hopkins returns to action on Saturday, April 17 against Washington College. The Centennial Conference match is slated to begin at 3:00 pm in Baltimore.
