Men's Tennis | 5/3/2015 8:24:00 PM
WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University men's tennis team rolled past Shaw (N.C.), 5-0, here Sundayin the first of two Atlantic Region II Tournament semifinals at the Edgar Martin Tennis Complex.
Coach Sam McCullough's Mountain East Conference champion Hilltoppers (20-2) will take on PSAC runner-up Mercyhurst (14-6) Monday at noon in the championship match. The No. 6-seeded Lakers surprised No. 3 seed West Virginia Wesleyan, 5-2, in Sunday's other semifinal. Monday's winner advances to the Round of 16 at the NCAA Division II National Championships in Surprise, Ariz. onMay 13-16.
West Liberty, which stretched its winning streak to 13 matches, took control early against Shaw's CIAA Tournament champions by sweeping the three doubles tilts.
The Hilltoppers picked up a forfeit win at No. 3 doubles and the No. 1 doubles tandem of Andy Ponder and Santiago Gutierrez cruised to an 8-4 win in their match. The pivotal match came at No. 2 doubles where WLU's Baptiste Perrin and Martin Moncayo rallied from a 5-2 deficit to force a tiebreaker. Perrin and Moncayo dominated the tiebreaker, 7-2, to complete the doubles sweep. With a forfeit win at No. 6 singles, West Liberty needed only one more singles win to close out the match and Perrin provided that in short order with a 6-1 6-4 win against Diego Choque at No. 3 singles.
In the second semifinal, Mercyhurst got a huge tiebreaker win from its No. 3 doubles pairing of Ross Molinaro IV and Robert Rizea to finish off a sweep of the three doubles matches and take a 3-0 lead into singles action against the higher-seeded Bobcats.
Wesleyan picked up singles wins from Jacobo Rendon at No. 2 and Ramon Rodriguez at No. 4 but it was too little, too late for the MEC squad as the Lakers closed things out with straight-set wins from Rizea at No. 3 and Conor McCooey at No. 5.
MEN'S TENNIS
Atlantic Region II
(at West Liberty, W.Va.)
Semifinals
#2 West Liberty 5, #7 Shaw 0
Doubles
Singles
1. Andy Ponder (WLU) vs. Gafur Sirojiddinov (Shaw) 7-5, 1-0, DNF
5. Matt Tully (WLU) vs. Bach Tran (Shaw) 3-6, 1-5, DNF #6 Mercyhurst 5, #3 W.Va. Wesleyan 2
Singles
1. Joel Izquierdo (WVW) vs. Nenad Terzic (Mercy) 6-2, 6-6 (1-5), DNF
2. Jacobo Rendon (WVW) d. Travis Beck (Mercy) 6-4, 6-0
3. Robert Rizea (Mercy) d. Ferran Berga (WVW) 6-3, 6-1
4. Ramon Rodriguez (WVW) d. Andoni Marquez (Mercy) 6-3, 6-1
5. Conor McCooey (Mercy) d. Aitor Reparaz (WVW) 6-3, 6-4
6. Tim Stephens (WVW) vs. Ross Molinaro IV (Mercy) 6-4, 1-3, DNF
Doubles
1. Travis Beck/Nenad Terzic (Mercy) d. Joel Izquierdo/Aitor Reparaz (WVW) 8-4
2. Conor McCooey/Andoni Marquez (Mercy) d. Andre Fernandes/Jose Titonel (WVW) 8-2
3. Ross Molinaro IV/Robert Rizea (Mercy) d. Jacobo Rendon/Nathan Savill (WVW) 9-8 (7-1)
