Box Score Results
PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville men's tennis team dropped its first Freedom Conference match of the season on Saturday, as the Valiants fell to conference rival Wilkes by an 8-1 score at the Manhattanville Courts.
The overall match, which pitted the two remaining unbeaten teams in the Freedom Conference, was much closer than the final score indicated, as two doubles contests needed 16 games to decide a winner and multiple singles matches were very competitive on both ends.
However, despite that the only Valiant to pull through with a victory was senior
Michael Capozzi (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic/San Judas Tadeo), who improved to 4-0 in Freedom play at first singles with a hard-fought supertiebreaker win over Alex Makos. Capozzi won the first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6 (7-2), and then dropped the second, 6-2, before coming back to take the supertiebreaker, 10-6.
The match could have turned early for Manhattanville, but the first- and third-doubles results barely went the way of Wilkes to put the home team behind. At first doubles, Capozzi and classmate
Dean Tahir (Yonkers, N.Y./Saunders) came up just short in a 9-7 loss to Steven Wilson and Clarke Freeman, while the third-doubles tandem of graduate student
Chris Lin (White Plains, N.Y./Eastchester) and senior
Kyle McGowan (Old Saybrook, Conn./Old Saybrook) fell by the same tantalizing score to Brandon Helfrich and Evan Katz.
“We always play Wilkes tough, but they were just a little too strong in all departments today,” assistant coach David Slater said. “Today gives us a good indication of what we have to work on for the rest of the regular season and what we need to do if we are to meet Wilkes again in the conference tournament.”
Manhattanville (3-6, 3-1 Freedom) is scheduled to return to action tomorrow with a 1 p.m. home match against Rensselaer, but rainy weather forecast for the area might force a postponement; check GoValiants.com tomorrow for the latest details. Wilkes (11-3, 4-0 Freedom) will conclude the regular season next Saturday at 1 p.m. against FDU-Florham.
