The men’s tennis team beat visiting Sacred Heart (SHU) 5-2 on Saturday afternoon. The win improved the Hawks overall record to 6-7 and evened their conference record at 3-3. Sacred Heart fell to 3-12 on the season with a conference record of 2-4.
“Our guys have improved a lot individually and we’ve improved overall as a team,” said first year Head Coach Cory Hubbard. “It was nice to put it all together today and get a victory over a quality team.”
Partners Ramy Bekhiet and Freddy Marcinkowski got MU off to a good start when they won their doubles match by a score of 8-3, but SHU then responded with an 8-1 victory over Joe Talafous and Eric Pierce in the No. 3 doubles section. In the deciding match for the doubles session, Jason Prezant and Jason Rothstein earned a hard-fought 8-4 victory and gave the first point of the match to the Hawks.
In the singles portion of play, John Lopresti of SHU shutout Talafous, 6-0, 6-0, to even the match at 1-1. MU then responded with two straight points when Rothstein beat Kevin Budrawich, 6-2, 6-2, and Marcinkowski defeated James Barnhart, 6-3, 6-3. The Pioneers then cut the lead to 3-2 after Matt Dean beat Prezant, 6-2, 6-2.
However, Bekhiet was able to clinch the match for the Hawks when he defeated Justin Pagan, 7-6, 6-1. In the final matchup of the day, Pierce extended the margin of victory for MU as he beat Brian Power in a tiebreaker, 6-3, 4-6, 10-4.
Pierce’s match was a grueling one that saw the freshman take the first set, but then drop the second and fall behind early in the tiebreak only to win seven straight points and earn the victory.
When asked about Pierce’s match Hubbard said, “I think when Eric [Pierce] saw Ramy [Bekhiet] win and seal the victory for us his energy dropped a little bit, but I told him he had to pick it back up and use this match to get better, and he was able to recover and get the win.”
The Hawks will look to use the momentum gained from this win in the upcoming NEC Championships that are less than a week away. “It was nice to get this win to give us some confidence heading into the final part of our season,” Hubbard said. “With 4 freshmen, one sophomore, and one junior we don’t have much experience, so we have to play with energy and heart. Wins like this help us do that, and increase our confidence in moving forward towards the tournament.”
