On Saturday night, the Lipscomb men’s tennis team defeated the University of North Dakota by a score of 5-2.
Lipscomb’s David Skrabut, on the sixth line, won his first clinch match for the Bisons to take home the victory. Lipscomb never trailed during the match.
“I’m excited for David,” Lipscomb coach Geoff Hernandez stated. “To win the last match for your team – it’s very important. It’s something you gotta break through.”
On the fifth line, Lipscomb’s Jake Penny also got another win while dealing with injuries, giving the Bisons the 5-2 win.
The Bisons duo of Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena took a win of 6-4 against the Hawks duo of Nejc Sitar and Lukas Buth at the No. 1 spot.
The battles in lines two and three were very close, as both teams had to play a tiebreaker set to settle who would get the doubles point.
In line two was Lipscomb’s Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe against UND’s Davide Callegari and Johnnie Carmichael. The match did not end in Lipscomb’s favor when Ortegon and Uribe lost the tiebreaker 7-6.
However, Bisons Jake Penny and Michael Tougher pushed through and won their tiebreaker 7-6, which gave Lipscomb a 1-0 lead.
“Today, we took care of the small things,” Lipscomb assistant coach Alejandro Manzanares said. “We started off with the right energy, and as long as we do that, we should always be ahead of any team.
“I feel like we should always take care of all the small things so we can start the matches with advantages and the right mindset. That always transitions to the singles as well.”
After Friday night’s loss to Chattanooga, Chaw, in the No. 1 spot, regained his dominance in singles play and defeated UND’s Sitar 6-2, 6-2. That gave the Bisons a 2-0 advantage.
“Victor really adjusted from one of his worst performances of the year to having a really solid one – just a dominating performance,” Hernandez said.
“That’s what’s important for our program, that kind of culture. Correcting, moving on and then by the end of the season, we’re hopefully playing our best.”
Chaw said believed it was important for the team to bounce back just 24 hours after their loss to the Mocs.
“I think I brought energy, and they fed off of it which I’m going to keep doing throughout the season,” Chaw said.
“They executed well [tonight]. Yesterday, I was down and the team was down. I feel them feeding off my intensity, so if I don’t do it, they don’t do it. So I’m embracing more of that responsibility, for sure.”
On the other hand, Caffarena in line two was not able to redeem himself after Friday night’s performance. Caffarena lost 6-4, 6-1 to Buth, giving a point to UND.
The Bisons got their second singles win with the help of Uribe, who played on the fourth line. Uribe won his sets 6-0, 6-4 against Kuhlman and brought Lipscomb’s lead up to 3-1, just one point shy of the clinch.
Ortegon, on the third line, could not get that last point for Lipscomb even with an extended match to three sets. Ortegon won the first set 6-4, but he was defeated 6-4, 6-0 by Carmichael.
Lipscomb’s No. 6 player, Skrabut, redeemed himself after Friday night’s performance with a win of 6-2, 6-3 over UND’s Pavle Drobnjakovic to finish the match for the Bisons.
After Skrabut won the official point that set the Bisons as the victors of the night, Penny also won his matches 6-2 and 6-4 against Callegari.
The Bisons will play Vanderbilt at the VU Currey Tennis Center on Friday, Feb. 22 at 4 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics