Tigers Fall To Allegheny But Bounce Back To Beat Wabash
After dropping 9-0 decision to regionally ranked Gators, Wittenberg pulls out 5-4 win over NCAC West rival Wabash.
DAYTON, Ohio - The Wittenberg Tigers were forced indoors on back-to-back days, with decidedly different results. Less than 12 hours after losing a deceiving 9-0 match to Allegheny at 5 Seasons Racquet Club, the Tigers bounced back to claim a hard-fought 5-4 win over Wabash, also on indoor courts.
The weekend ended with a cancellation, as the cold temperatures and high winds forced Wittenberg and Capital to call off their match. The Tigers emerged with records of 9-4 overall and 1-1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) West Division.
Wittenberg started with a loss to Allegheny, which is ranked in the Central Region, that was not without some tight matches. Most notably, freshman Juan Mena (Quito, Ecuador/Colego Americano-Quito) lost a three-set match at No. 3 singles.
The Tigers were back at it early the next day, starting with two losses in three doubles matches against Wabash. The No. 1 doubles tandem of junior Alexey Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia/School 712) and sophomore Stas Pakhomov (Richmond, British Columbia/Sir Winston Churchill) picked up a key point with a 9-7 win.
Wittenberg completed a comeback in the singles competition, started with straight-sets wins from Pakhomov at No. 2 and sophomore Jialang Woo (Shanghai, China/Yew Chung Int. School) at No. 5. Sophomore Mitchell Patterson (Cincinnati, Ohio/Moeller) leveled the match with a three-set win at No. 6, and Topolyanskiy capped things with a win over the Little Giants' Wade Miller, the 19th-ranked player in the Central Region.