Lipscomb’s men’s tennis team held its first outdoor home match at the Huston-Marsh-Griffith Tennis Center against Presbyterian College Monday and emerged with 4-2 victory over Presbyterian.
The Bisons (5-7) started the match down one point after losing the doubles play.
On the third line, Lipscomb’s Jake Penny and Michael Tougher kept their lead against Presbyterian’s Jamie Castillo-Lopez and Vance Mercer and won the set 6-2.
“Line three is playing pretty well and they’re getting along,” Lipscomb assistant coach Alejandro Manzanares said. “They did the job and took care of the task pretty fast.”
However, on the second line, Lipscomb’s Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe lost 6-2 against Alberto Conde and Nicholas McKinney, which put the doubles play at a tie.
“I feel like [line two] didn’t start off the right way,” said Manzanares. “They didn’t have the right energy – they waited a little bit too long to actually start the match, then it was too late to come back from it.”
In the No. 1 spot, Lipscomb’s Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena played a long battle stretching the set into a tiebreaker but ended up losing 7-6 against Presbyterian’s Oscar Alvarez and Max Banson.
“Doubles was rough,” Lipscomb’s No. 1 player Chaw said. “We missed a couple key points. It’s just one of those when you miss a key point, and you just lose it. It was a tough loss, but we bounced back pretty well [in singles].”
Despite the loss the doubles point, the Bisons still headed into singles play with a strong mindset and hope for a positive outcome.
Playing in line five for Lipscomb was Penny against Presbyterian’s Alvarez. Penny quickly lost both sets 6-1, 6-2 to give Presbyterian a 2-0 lead.
However, after Penny’s match, the Bisons started to roll.
In line six, Lipscomb’s David Skrabut won 6-4 in both of his sets against Presbyterian’s Elias Svensson.
“Then you have David coming from the bottom and winning pretty solidly,” Lipscomb head coach Geoff Hernandez. “It’s just success throughout the whole line-up.
“That’s what we need to have to be a really good team. I thought they did a good job.”
Lipscomb tied the score at 2 when Caffarena, in line two, defeated Conde 6-2, 6-4.
The Bisons gained the lead when No. 1 player Chaw beat Banson in a three-set match. Chaw played a drawn-out match, winning the first set 6-1, losing the second set 6-4 and taking home the victory in the final set by a score of 6-3.
“My opponent made a lot of balls,” Chaw said. “His game plan was basically slicing a lot and lowering the pace of the match, making me miss. But once I overcame that, I dominated so it was just about staying patient.”
“Victor really gutted it out,” Hernandez said. “He lost a couple three-setters [this season], but he finally pulled one out against a pretty tricky opponent.”
The Bisons were then up 3-2 and needed just one more singles point to claim the win for the night.
Lipscomb’s Uribe, on the fourth line, clinched the match for the team after winning a three-set match against Castillo-Lopez. Uribe won and lost the first two sets at 6-4, but he finished the match with a win of 7-5 to give Lipscomb the 4-2 overall victory.
Ortegon’s single match against Presbyterian’s McKinney went unfinished in what was a successful day for Lipscomb’s first outdoor apperance at home.
“It’s different transitioning from playing indoor to outdoor,” Manzanares commented. “The points are a little bit longer, so you have to be a little bit more patient.
“As long as they’re aggressive and improve on what they didn’t do right today, they’ll do much better for the rest of the season.”
Lipscomb will host Georgia Southern on Friday, March 15 at 11 a.m.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics