This past Saturday, the No. 12 men’s tennis team played its first match since returning from its Spring Break trip to California, defeating No. 24 Brandeis 6-2 in Waltham, Mass.
“The team came out intense and focused,” said Hugh Mo ’17. “Not taking them lightly and just coming out and playing our best was key.”
And so the Polar Bears did, accomplishing one of their goals for the match early on by winning two of three doubles matches, though the No. 1 doubles team did fall.
As the match continued on to singles, Bowdoin continued to dominate. Noah Bragg ’15 started the team off well at No. 1 singles, taking down the Judge’s top player Michael Arguello 6-2, 6-2. Additional straight set victories from No. 3 Sam King ’14 (6-4, 6-3), No. 4 Chris Lord ’14 (6-2, 6-4), and No. 6 Chase Savage ’16 (6-0, 6-4) sealed the Bowdoin victory.
No. 5 Kyle Wolstencroft ’15 was unable to finish his match because the win had already been assured and another team was waiting to play, but Bowdoin Head Coach Conor Smith felt said he would have came out on top.
“I feel confident that if they were gonna play it out, he would have won,” said Smith. “But he understood that the match had been decided.”
The Polar Bears got another great performance out of King, who was named NESCAC Player of the Week three weeks ago after a stellar series of matches in California, highlighted by a key day in which he won both his singles and doubles matches (with partner Wolstencroft) against Pomona-Pitzer. Those two points were significant—Bowdoin pulled out a 5-3 victory over a team now only one spot behind them in the national rankings.
“[King] is one of those guys that really takes the idea of getting better to heart,” said Smith. “He doesn’t just say that and go through the motions, he really works hard the whole practice or match. Mentally, he just found the right energy level to compete at.”
This weekend, the Polar Bears hit the road again, traveling to MIT tomorrow and then Connecticut College on Sunday. The team will finally host its first home match of the year on April 13, when No. 4 Amherst will make the journey up to Brunswick in a hotly anticipated NESCAC matchup.