For the College's men's tennis team, Sunday's 4-3 win against New York University (NYU) left quite an impression.
"It was the best match I've ever been a part of in my life," senior Ken Tsui said. The deciding victory came down to sophomore first singles player Ryan Carty. Carty entered the match in a weakened condition due to an illness he faced a couple days before the match.
The other obstacle Carty faced was his opponent, sophomore Ian Corn. On the second set of their match, Carty seemingly hit a winner down the line for the set point. To everyone's disbelief, Corn called it out of bounds while the official was elsewhere.
"At that point everyone was so pissed, so our team got together and said let's help Carty win by pumping him up," Tsui said. "It was amazing how everyone got behind him." Carty's teammates shouted and cheered him on throughout the match.
Carty lost focus for the game after the questionable call but fought hard to capture the second set win in a tiebreaker. Corn had won the previous set 6-3, so the match went to a deciding third set.
The tension was thick on the court as Carty shot Corn an intimidating stare while passing by each other to switch sides. After Carty took a 1-0 lead in the deciding set, Corn forfeited, saying that he could not continue playing, and gave Carty the win. Corn had stopped the match at one point for medical attention, which consisted of rubbing lotion on his upper thighs.
When the victory was announced, the Lions rushed at Carty in an explosive celebration. Carty's triumph gave the Lions the win for the first time against NYU in three years.
Corn, however, was frustrated and bitter after his loss and shouted about how good he is while heading out of the tennis complex. Carty quickly reminded Corn of his 0-3 record against him repeatedly as Corn walked away in defeat.
"Ryan Carty is one of the toughest competitors around," head coach Scott Dicheck said. "He beat that kid because he had the most heart."
The match was just as tough for the rest of the Lions. The excitement started early when the first and third doubles matches were split between the College and NYU.
First doubles team Carty and sophomore Corey Ball defeated their opponents 8-0 while freshmen Mike Klimchak and Eric Ferriere fell 8-6 by only a two-game deficit. This forced the doubles point to be decided by senior second doubles partners Victor Lai and Tsui.
Tsui's consistent serves in the final set kept him and Lai in the game as they continued to exchange advantages with freshman Mikhail Gurevich and senior Joshua Beirne-Golden. The Lions came up just short in the match, losing 8-5, to give NYU one team point.
Klimchak, Ball and freshman Donald Pollosco had two-set wins in singles for the Lions to force Carty's deciding match.
The College's women's tennis team notched another win on Saturday, easily defeating the Rangers of Drew University 9-0. The team lost only 11 out of the 107 individual games played in the match.
"We go out and play our best every match and never take a team lightly," freshman Christina Contrafatto said. "We always give 100 percent no matter how the good the team we're playing is. Last week's loss (to Carnegie Mellon) was to a really tough team and since we did better against them then in the fall, it was actually a confidence boost for us."
Both the men's and women's teams will travel to Connecticut College for their next match on April 3.
