By Josh Kestenbaum
Staff Writer
In their first match of the season, the Lions men’s tennis team posted an impressive win after defeating Vassar College by a score of 9-0 on Saturday, Feb. 14. The College swept both doubles and singles in this match to take all nine points.
“We need not just a win,” said coach Scott Dicheck to his team after going up 3-0 after the doubles round. “We want to put on a dominating performance.”
The Lions did indeed put on such a dominating performance. The top doubles pair of sophomores Pierce Cooper and Billy Buchbinder defeated their opponents 8-6, while the second doubles pair and fellow sophomores Jack August and Jason Prezant earned a victory of 8-5. To cap the Lions’ sweep of the doubles matches, freshmen Chris D’Agostino and Sean Fernandez were victorious by a score of 9-7.
The Lions’ success continued into the singles round. At first singles, Cooper dispatched his opponent 6-3, 6-1. August, playing No. 2 singles, fought back after losing the first set to defeat his opponent 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 10-6. Buchbinder defeated his No. 3 opponent 6-2, 6-3. No. 4 singles was another close match and, after dropping the first set and climbing back, D’Agostino came out on top 4-6, 7-5, 10-5. Fernandez made short work of his opponent at No. 5 singles, winning impressively by a score of 6-1, 6-0.
The No. 6 singles match was the last match to finish, and it came down to the wire. Junior Dan Presuto won the first set 6-4 but consequently dropped the second set 0-6. With all members of both teams looking on, Presuto and his opponent moved on to a super tiebreak: first to 10 points wins, but it must be by two points. The two players traded serves and points but ultimately, it was Presuto coming out triumphant, by a score of 10-7.
“You got to block out what happened negatively in that second set,” said DiCheck about how he coached Presuto going into the super tiebreaker. “We were able to win the supers by kind of blocking out any of the past negative stuff.”
With this victory, the Lions start the season with a record of 1-0 and look to build on this win as the season goes on. The team is back in action next Saturday, Feb. 21, at 1 p.m. in the Rec Center, where they will host the Dickinson College Red Devils.
