The men’s tennis won two of their three conference matches last week, improving to 10-3 (4-2 NESCAC). The Polar Bears beat Hamilton (7-8, 0-3 NESCAC) 8-1 but the following day lost to No. 5 Amherst (15-4, 4-0 NESCAC) 8-1. In a mid-week match against Colby, the Polar Bears won 6-3.
On Saturday, the team resoundingly beat Hamilton. The Polar Bears took a 3-0 lead in doubles play after Luke Trinka ’16 and Luke Tercek ’18 won the No. 1 match, Kyle Wolstencroft ’15 and Gil Roddy ’18 won the No. 2 match and Kyle Wolfe ’18 and Chase Savage ’16 won the No. 3 match. Luke Trinka ’16, Wolfe, Luke Tercek ’16, Roddy and Hugh Mo ’17 all cruised to straight-set singles victories for the win.
The following day, Bowdoin could not recover from a 3-0 doubles deficit against Amherst in a battle of top-ten teams. In No. 1 doubles, Trinka and Tercek had the closest doubles match of the day with a 9-7 loss. Roddy had the lone singles win for Bowdoin.
“We lost a bunch of tight matches against Bates and Amherst that could have gone either way,” Wolfe said. “Credit to those teams for pulling them out, but based on the resilience we showed in California, I am confident that those matches will come back our way.”
Against Colby, the team made it out of doubles play with a 2-1 match lead. Although the Trinka-Tereck combo was bageled in first singles, Wolstencroft and Roddy won their match easily and Wolfe and Bragg won their match in a tiebreak.
The singles matches faired similarly to the doubles matches, with Colby taking first and second singles and Bowdoin taking the other four.
According to Head Coach Conor Smith, doubles play has been a weak spot for Bowdoin so far this season.
“We’ve shown plenty of times that we’re more than capable of playing very good doubles with anyone in the country, but we’ve unfortunately shown a capability of getting down a lot in doubles,” he said. “If we’re capable of getting consistent production from our doubles, we’ll be in good shape.”
Looking forward, the team hopes to finish strong in NESCAC play. The Polar Bears still have to play Middlebury, Tufts and Williams.
“I think our goal is to ultimately be the best in the NESCAC,” Smith said. “At the same time, [the NESCAC] is so loaded with the men’s tennis teams from a national scene, it’s a lot easier said than done.”
“We have some really tough matches coming up, and we are excited for the opportunity to continue the success we’ve had this season,” said Wolfe.
Bowdoin will return to the courts against Middlebury this Saturday at 2 p.m.