April 3, 2010

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - The eighth-ranked Johns Hopkins men's tennis team split a pair of matches on Saturday against Ursinus and seventh-ranked Kenyon. The Blue Jays beat the Ursinus Bears in Centennial Conference action by an 8-1 score. Hopkins then dropped a 9-0 decision to Kenyon in a marathon match that lasted five hours and 15 minutes. The Blue Jays are now 9-3 overall (3-0 CC) as they lose their first match since a 6-3 loss to Division II Flagler on March 15.

In the Centennial Conference match up in Collegeville, Hopkins dropped just one match in en route to the 8-1 win over Ursinus. Freshmen Adam Mernit (Bayside, NY/Walt Whitman) and Garrett Mertl (Marietta, GA/Pace Academy) did not drop a game in beating Chris Wyshock and Nick Rall, 8-0, at second. Freshmen Jeffrey Kamei (Downey, CA/Troy) and Morgan Dauer (Lloyd Harbor, NY/Cold Spring Harbor) then beat Josh Hollaman and Jason Zerbe, 8-2, at third. The Bears then picked up their lone point of the match, as Bennett MacLaughlin and Sean Kelley beat senior Dan Myers (Chattanooga, TN/Collegiate School (VA)) and sophomore Michael Chang (Winston Salem, NC/Forsyth Country Day School), 8-5, at first.

In singles action, the Blue Jays lost just nine games as they swept all six doubles matches to take the 8-1 win. Chang, Dauer and Kamei all won by identical 6-0, 6-0 scores at first, second and fifth respectively. Chang beat MacLaughlin at first, while Dauer beat Kevin Dean at second and Kamei topped Zerbe at fifth. At third, Mertl lost just two games in a 6-1, 6-1 win over Wyschock. Mernit won at fourth, beating Kelly, 6-1, 6-2. And at sixth, Myers won over Hollaman, 6-0, 6-4. The Blue Jays win is their 32nd straight Centennial Conference win.

In the other match, Kenyon took a 3-0 lead early after winning all three doubles. Tomas Piskacek and Jeremy Polster won 8-2 at second over sophomore Jacob Barnaby (Phoenix, AZ/Desert Vista) and junior Casey Blythe (Louisville, KY/St. Xavier). At first, Charles Brody and Michael Greenberg won 8-3 over senior David Maldow (Jericho, NY/Jericho) and junior Andrew Wang (Sparta, NJ/Sparta). The closest match came at third as Paul Burgin and William VandenBerg won a tight 9-8 (7-2) match over sophomore Warren Elgort (New York, NY/Trinity) and junior Ryan Rauck (Columbus, OH/Bexley).

In singles play, the Lords won all six matches, but two were decided in three sets and a third in a super-tiebreaker. At first, Greenberg won over Maldow, 6-0, 6-1 and Burgin won at fifth, 6-1, 6-2 over Barnaby. Piskacek also won in straight sets, but needed a tiebreaker in the second to take the win, beating Wang, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7). At third, Polster beat Elgort, 6-4, in the first set, but Elgort bounced back and won the second, 6-3. Polster then took the match with a 7-5 win in the third set. Freshman Andy Hersh (Valrico, FL/Newsome) won his first set, 6-5, but VandenBerg rallied to win the second (6-0, 6-2). And at sixth, Brody won the first set over senior Peter Vale (Haverford, PA/Episcopal Academy), but the Blue Jays' co-captain came back to win the second, 6-4. Brody won the ensuing super-tiebreaker, 13-11, to take the win.

Hopkins returns to action on Sunday, April 4 as the Blue Jays travel to Pittsburgh, PA to take on 11th-ranked Carnegie Mellon. It will be a rematch of the fifth-place match at the 2010 ITA National Indoor Championship, which Hopkins won 6-3 on February 20. The match is slated to begin at noon.