NEWBERG, Ore. –Lewis & Clark College men's tennis won their first points in a Northwest Conference Tournament match since 2018, but Whitman College prevailed in the semi-finals 5-2 to advance to the championship match.
THE BASICS
Whitman 5, Lewis & Clark 2
(Lewis & Clark 10-5, 5-2 NWC)
(Whitman 12-12, 6-1 NWC)
HOW IT HAPPENED
Senior
Miles Stone and sophomore
Landon Cronin earned the first win of the day for Lewis & Clark in doubles and freshman
Noah Sutin earned the second point with a win in singles.
Stone and Cronin defeated Noah Baker and Diego Guzman 8-3 at number three doubles to prevent a sweep by the Blues.
Sutin and freshman
Joey Lyon fell in the first doubles match 8-4 to Artem Manov and Charles Rush.
Sophomores
Kai Wills and
Wade McDermott went into a tiebreak at number two doubles with Cameron Yang and Lucas Huang. Wills and McDermott fell 8-7 (7-5) in a close match.
Sutin kept the Pioneers in the semi-final by winning the first singles match 7-6 (7-0), 6-1 over Yang.
Whitman earned wins in the second, third and fifth singles matches to advance in post-season play. Wills fell 7-5, 6-1 to Huang in the second flight. Lyon lost 6-3, 6-2 to Manov at number three, and McDermott dropped the fifth singles match 6-3, 6-2 to Alejandro Raffo.
Junior
Matt Chio was up 6-4, 1-4 at number four singles, and Stone had split the first two sets and was down a game 6-2, 4-6, 2-1 in the sixth singles match when play was stopped.
BY THE NUMBERS
- Stone ends his career with Lewis & Clark with 42 total wins, including the doubles in the NWC semi-finals on Saturday.
- Sutin avenged a regular season three-set loss to Yang earlier in the season with his win over the Blues' number one singles player.
- The last time the Pioneers won a game in the NWC Tournament was 2018. That season, they defeated George Fox 5-3 in the semi-finals before falling to Whitman 5-1 in the championship match.
WHO'S NEXT
Lewis & Clark plans to return 10 players from this year's 10-5 squad that finished third in the NWC, including All-NWC Second Team selections Sutin and Wills.