Box Score
Grantham, PA - The Messiah College Men's tennis brought some of the warm weather from their South Carolina spring break trip back with them to Grantham. With match temperatures pushing 80 degrees the Falcons definitely enjoyed the sun during their 9-0 2012 home opening win over Penn State Berks.
Doubles play started the day and Messiah took control quickly.
At number one doubles senior and captain
Andrew Wismer and freshman
Michael Brookhart teamed up to defeat Penn State's Matt Holdorf and Brad Kale 8-1 in the pro set.
Peter Shuck and
Zachary Brunner brought a little more ecentric style of play to number two doubles as they used great teamwork to fly through their match 8-0.
Not to be outdone by their teammates, Dave Wichert and Chris Brittingham beat their Penn State foes in similar fashion taking their pro set 8-0 as well.
With an early 3-0 match lead Messiah entered singles play, and Wichert did not waste any time getting done.
Wichert literally blew by his opponent, and teammates, as he finished his match in less than an hour. Using aggressive shots, combined with pin point accuracy Wichert took the number three singles match 6-0, 6-1.
Admiring his neighboring teammate, freshman
Peter Shuck took much longer to complete his match but still came out with the same score as Wichert winning 6-0, 6-1 at number four singles.
Brunner and Brittingham both were involved in slightly closer matches at the number five and number six singles spots respectively. Brunner defeated Creston Smoker from Penn State in straight sets, winning 6-2, 6-3. Brittingham combined strong baseline shots with aggressive net play to come out on top 6-0,6-3.
Wismer played at number two singles for the Falcons and was able to completely control the first set winning 6-0. The second set was a little different of a story. A few uncharachteristic unforced errors by Wismer allowed Javi Melendez of Penn State Berks to remain in the match. With back and forth play throughout the entire second match Wismer was able to regain momentum and limit his errors and he finally finished the second set with a 6-4 victory.
Anchoring the number one spot for Messiah was freshman
Michael Brookhart. Brookhart mixed up both top spin and back spin shots to keep Holdorf off guard and take the first set 6-2. Holdorf made Brookhart work as he forced Michael into many long points in the second set and Holdorf was able to grab an early 2-1 lead. Brookhart battled back to tie the second set at three games apiece. From that point on Brookhart dominated and won the final three games to win the second set 6-3.
"We played really well today," head Messiah tennis coach
Jon Arosell commented. "We were able to hit all the shots we wanted to hit and we played well from top to bottom as we pulled out a win in every match."
The Falcons will look to build upon the success of this game in their next match against Kings College on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
