Box Score
Wilkes-Barre, PA - The rain did not stop the Messiah men's tennis team from competing and defeating Kings College on Saturday. The Falcons were able to pull out a close 5-4 match win over the Monarchs to reach .500 on the season with a 3-3 record.
As rain was in the forecast, the match started with singles first instead of doubles, in case the match would have to move indoors.
Senior
Andrew Wismer started the singles contests on the right foot by defeating Carroll in straight sets 7-5, 6-3, having to fight back from a break down in both sets.
Notching yet another victory for the Falcons was freshman
Peter Shuck won the number four singles match 6-1, 6-4 behind his relentlessly consistent play.
The third and final singles point for Messiah came at number five singles. Sophomore Chris Brittingham won in convincing fashion 6-1, 6-1 over Kings' Larson.
The other singles matches went to the Monarchs.
Cozzillio, who won the #1 singles championship in the MAC Championships last year, handed
Michael Brookhart a 6-1, 6-2 defeat at the top singles spot.
At number three singles, Messiah's
David Wichert fought through adversity after losing the first set 6-4 to win the second set 6-3. However, the Monarchs' Tony Bevevino had too much in the final set and topped Wichert 6-3 in the third set.
Messiah's
Nathan Shertzer was also able to force a third and final set. After losing his first set 6-3, Shertzer pulled out a second set tiebreaker, winning the set 7-6, but did not have enough in the third as he lost the final set 6-0.
Messiah moved into doubles play with the match tied at 3-3, needing to win two of the three doubles points to clinch the victory.
At number two doubles Shuck and
Zachary Brunner continued their dominant play together by beating the Monarch's number two team of Tony Bevevino and Anders Larson 8-2 in the pro set, giving Messiah their fourth point.
Shortly after, Messiah's number one double tandem of Wismer and Brookhart played their best doubles of their season, defeating Kings' number one team of Chris Cozzillio and Tim Carroll by a score of 8-6. Down 6-3, Wismer and Brookhart remained positive and mixed up their returns to tie the set at 6-6. They then found a way to break Cozzillio's hard serve and Wismer held his serve for the set and the match.
The win was impressive for the Falcons as Chris Cozzillio and Tim Carroll won the #1 doubles tournament in the MAC Championship in the fall.
The final doubles match was taken by Kings with Wichert and Brittingham getting beat by Nick Conte and Matt Grassi 8-6 in a close matchup.
Nevertheless, the Messiah Falcons were able to pull out the close win 5-4 before any rain would delay the match.
"This was a huge win for our team," head Messiah men's tennis coach
Jon Arosell said. "We played solid in singles and we played our best in the doubles matches. The guys really stepped up to the challenge today.”
The Falcons next match is on Saturday, March 31st at 10:00 a.m. in Grantham against MAC foe Alvernia.
