Men's Tennis Beats Susquehanna, Falls For First Time Against E&H

Wittenberg men’s tennis kept rolling through the spring schedule, this time with a sweep of Susquehanna University to improve to 8-0 on the year.

Dennis Gleason (pictured) paired up with Mitchell Patterson for a No. 3 doubles win, part of a clean sweep of Susquehanna on Wednesday. File Photo | Erin Pence
Dennis Gleason (pictured) paired up with Mitchell Patterson for a No. 3 doubles win, part of a clean sweep of Susquehanna on Wednesday. File Photo | Erin Pence
March 7, 2013
Box Score

HILTON HEAD, S.C.  – Wittenberg men's tennis extended an unbeaten streak to eight with a sweep of Susquehanna before falling for the first time in 2012-13 in a tightly contested 5-4 loss to Emory & Henry on Thursda.

The Susquehanna match began with a strong doubles session, where junior Sam Wilke (Cincinnati, Ohio/Turpin) and sophomore Sasha Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia/School 712) defeated Susquehanna's No. 1 combination by an 8-2 score. Junior Joe Marra (Great Falls, Mont./Great Falls) and sophomore Ian Streicker (South Lebanon, Ohio/Loveland) followed that up with an 8-1 win at No. 2, and freshman Dennis Gleason (Columbus, Ohio/St. Charles) teamed with freshman Mitchell Patterson (Cincinnati, Ohio/Moeller) for an 8-3 victory at No. 3.

In singles action, sophomore Alexey Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia/School 712) took the No. 1 matchup by a 6-3, 6-1 score. Junior Tyler Strong (Louisville, Ky./duPont Manual) was victorious at No. 2 6-3, 6-2, and Marra won 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3.

Sophomore Jialang Woo (Shanghai, China/Yew Chung Int. School) came out on top of the No. 4 matchup by winning a tiebreaker 7-5 in the second set for a 6-1, 7-6 victory. Freshman Tom Pinhas (Miami, Fla./U.E. El Angel) won a tiebreaking set at No. 5 to finish 6-2, 4-6, 10-5, and senior Stuart Zorn (Wyoming, Ohio/Wyoming) went for the clean sheet at 6-0, 6-0 in the sixth position.

Against 6-1 Emory & Henry, the Tigers played hard but dropped the doubles portion 2-1, an advantage that held up after the teams split the singles results.

Streicker and Marra lifted an 8-2 decision off their opponents in No. 3 doubles, but the other two positions went to Emory & Henry. In singles, Wilke (No. 4), Fishkin (No. 5) and Strong (No. 6) were all victorious, the former two by tiebreaker sets. Alexey Topolyanskiy lost a close match at third singles by tiebreaker.

The Tigers finish their Spring Break action with a 1 p.m. match against Northwestern (Minn.) on Friday, March 8.

John Strawn '07