Williamsport, PA - The Messiah College men's tennis team picked up its fourth commonwealth win of the season with a 6-3 defeat of Lycoming College. With the win the Falcons move to 6-5 overall on the season.
Doubles matches got the Falcons off to a good start against Lycoming as the team took two of the three matches.
Number one doubles team of
Andrew Wismer and
Michael Brookhart could not formulate the right shots to win and dropped their match 8-4 against Lycoming's Jason Mifsud and Cody Heffner.
Christopher Brittingham and
David Wichert controlled their number three doubles match the whole time on rout to their 8-3 victory over the Warrior's Chris Connoly and Jack Port.
Number two doubles was an interesting match.
Peter Shuck and
Zachary Brunner jumped out to an impressive 7-2 lead and only needed one more game to finish the match. However, Lycoming's Frankie Casale and Devin Rachael fought their way back and tied the match at seven games all. The teams split the next two games which forced a final tiebreaker to decide the match.
Brunner and Shuck were able to thwart the Warrior's comeback and won the tiebreaker 7-5 to claim a 9-8 (7-5) victory.
As singles play began the Falcons the Falcons had one thing on their mind...win the match and secure the number three spot in the upcoming Commonwealth conference tournament.
Senior and captain
Andrew Wismer took the court at number two singles for the Falcons and showed his team how to win. Wismer handled Heffner by using consistent shots to the corners and never allowing Heffner to get comfortable. With his style of play Wismer was able to finish off an impressive win against the Warrior's 6-4, 6-1.
At number six singles Brittingham dominated his Lycoming foe without surrendering a game, winning 6-0, 6-0.
Messiah only needed one more victory to clinch a playoff birth.
Unfortunately the Warrior's Misfud was not ready to let that happen as he handled Brookhart at number one singles 6-0, 6-0 and picked up his 30th career singles victory for Lycoming.
Then at third singles WIchert took to long to figure out Casale and droppped the match 6-1, 7-5.
Brunner was able to come through for the Falcons in a big way by defeating his Warrior opponent in straight sets at number five singles 6-4, 6-1 behind his powerful serve and strong ground strokes.
In the final singles match
Peter Shuck needed three sets to finish his number four singles match. Shuck dropped the first set 6-3, but rallied to win the second set 7-5 and took the third set super tiebreaker 10-7.
With the win Messiah claims the number three spot in the 2012 Commonwealth Championships and will face Lebanon Valley who they defeated the Falcons 6-3 in an
earlier match this season.
Messiah's final regular season match is this Saturday at Albright College at 10:00 a.m.
