by Adrienne Luu | Feb 16, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb men’s tennis team lost against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Friday night at the Richland Country Club. The Bisons (3-4) were able to get the lead at the beginning of the night when they won the doubles point. In line one, Lipscomb’s Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena were the first to finish their set and lost 6-3 to UTC’s Kerim Hyatt and Simon Bustamente. Jake Penny and Michael Tougher, playing for the Bisons on the third line, won 6-4 in their doubles match against the Mocs’ Jacob Marshall and Pablo Llebeili. Shortly following, the Bisons’ Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe, in line two, delivered the winning point against Niklas Gerdes and Tomas Rodriguez 7-6. This gave Lipscomb the lead at 1-0. “I think it was important that line three finally came together,” Lipscomb coach Geoff Hernandez said. “For Michael to get his first win and Jake to work his way through the injuries and compete, it makes us feel that we’re not just going to win at two lines, but we’re going to win at every line, so I thought [their win] was really big.” Although the Bisons were off to a good start for themselves, they were unable to keep their lead in singles play. On the first line, Lipscomb’s Chaw lost both of his sets 6-1 and 6-4 to UTC’s Gerdes, which led the Bisons to losing their lead and setting the score at 1-1. Uribe, on the fourth line, was able to get the lead back for Lipscomb with a win from his three-set match against Bustamante. Uribe lost the first set...
by Adrienne Luu | Feb 10, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb men’s tennis team lost 6-1 against Grand Canyon University on Saturday night at the Richland Country Club’s tennis center. The night did not start off in favor of the Bisons (3-3) when they lost the doubles point 2-1 in just 30 minutes. In the No. 2 spot for doubles, Lipscomb’s Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe lost their set 6-1 to Valentin Lang and Jakub Novak, while Lipscomb’s Jake Penny and Michael Tougher, on the third line, lost 6-2 to Lucas Grego and Freddie Grant. On the first line, the match between Bisons duo Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena and GCU’s Lorenzo Fucile and Mathieu Rajaonah was left unfinished. “I think today, honestly, [GCU] just kind of came out, and they just played a little bit better earlier in matches, especially in doubles,” Lipscomb head coach Geoff Hernandez said. “We came out just not quite ready, so they loosened up and ran away with it. So I give them credit for their level.” Losing the doubles point seemed to have impacted the Bisons as they played the rest of the night. “We tried to regroup and tried to get it going, but I think the energy was just a little too up and down today, so we just need to do a better job at maintaining that,” Hernandez said. “Getting a little more energy from the bench and from the courts. It wasn’t their lack of caring, but I think it was just they were disappointed in the performance of doubles, and we didn’t react fast enough.” In line four for Lipscomb was Uribe, and he lost both...
by Adrienne Luu | Feb 6, 2019 | News Slider, Sports, Student Spotlight
If you’ve been to a men’s tennis match in the past four seasons, you may have heard the crowd chanting “Manza!” Lipscomb’s men’s tennis recruited Alejandro Manzanares, the No. 1 player in Venezuela’s 18U division, back in the spring semester of 2015. Throughout his tennis career as a Bison, he has achieved multiple ASUN titles as well as finished every year with a positive individual record. Manzanares is currently a senior in his fifth spring semester. He anticipates on graduating this upcoming May. Due to NCAA rules, he is unable to play on the team this season since he has already played his four seasons of eligibility. However, head coach Geoff Hernandez offered Manzanares a position as the new assistant coach this season. “I think Alejandro obviously had a high IQ as a tennis player,” Hernandez said. “I knew that coaching was going to be a natural thing for him, and it’s honestly something that I feel like he might do with the rest of his life. On the court, Hernandez said Manzanares was known to have a winner’s mentality, smart play decisions and calm mannerisms. It was only a matter of time before he transferred those qualities over to coaching. “I think as he got organized with his academics in the fall, it was the right time for him to come into the spring, and he has had an immediate impact,” Hernandez said. Ironically, before Manzanares was offered the position, he was actually considering asking Hernandez himself if he could volunteer as the assistant coach. But Hernandez beat him to it, and Manzanares was not surprised that the opportunity presented...
by Adrienne Luu | Feb 2, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
The match took four and a half hours to finish, but the Lipscomb men’s tennis team left with a 4-3 victory over Furman University on Friday night. The Bisons (2-2) started the night off against the Paladins with a lead by winning the doubles point. On the third line, Lipscomb’s Francesco Tacconi and George Wong played Furman’s Ivan Mitric and James Roelfose and lost the match 6-1. Bisons pair Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe then won their set 6-3 against Drew Singerman and Clarke Wilson, leaving it up to Lipscomb’s duo in line one to get the doubles point. As Lipscomb’s Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena fought out their battle with Jake Munns and Jake Bhangdia, the two teams stood watch while waiting to see who would clinch the point. After a long battle, Chaw and Caffarena managed to win the set 6-4 and got Lipscomb’s first point of the night, putting them in the lead. “I think the doubles was more of an example of being greedy rather than us playing well,” Lipscomb coach Geoff Hernandez said. “It wasn’t our best, but we performed mentally, and that’s the thing we talked about all week. Even though it wasn’t our best, they still pulled out the win.” The win from the doubles point gave the Bisons more energy and motivation to transfer their heat to singles play and try to win the night’s match with just three more points. In the No. 2 spot, Caffarena was the first to finish the job, bringing the Bisons up 2-0. Playing against the Paladins’ Clarke Wilson, Caffarena won both of his sets...
by Adrienne Luu | Jan 27, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb men’s tennis hosted its first home match of the season at Richland Country Club against the University of Alabama at Birmingham and ended Saturday night with a 4-3 loss. Unlike the previous matches, the Bisons (1-2) lost the doubles point and started off the night behind, 1-0. Lipscomb’s Francesco Tacconi and David Skrabut, playing in line three, finished first and lost 6-0 against UAB’s Jasper Van Kleef and Giovani Pasini. In line one, Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena lost their set 6-2, which secured the doubles point for the Blazers. The Bisons’ duo of Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe were left with an unfinished match in line two. “Honestly, our doubles performance was probably one of the worst ones we’ve had in the last two years,” Bisons head coach Geoff Hernandez said. “We’ve really made [doubles] a strength. “I know that the guys will really put the effort to bounce back and take ownership over their strengths. We made a slip-up there, and it might’ve cost us the match. We can’t accept that, but we can make it better.” Despite losing the doubles point, the Bisons were still found a way to defeat the Blazers in singles play. In the No. 2 spot, Pablo Caffarena won both of his sets of 6-3 and 6-2 against Daniel Janko. With the win, Caffarena gave the Bisons their first point and knotted the score at one. Shortly after, Jorge Ortegon won his sets 6-2 and 6-4 against Nikolai Manchev, giving Lipscomb a 2-1 lead. However, Pedro Uribe lost both of his sets to Michal Lusovsky, which brought the Blazers up one point...
