SURPRISE, Ariz.— The Colorado Mesa University men's tennis team put up a good fight but was eventually defeated by the nation's seventh-ranked and Pacific West Conference Championship's top-seeded Asuza Pacific University Cougars in the quarterfinal round of the tournament on Thursday afternoon here at the Surprise Tennis Center.
The Cougars won the match, 4-0, to improve to 16-3 overall with their 12
th straight victory. The eighth-seeded Mavericks, who are new to the PacWest as affiliate members in tennis this year, fell to 9-8 heading into a Friday consolation semifinal against fifth-seeded Point Loma (4-9), which was downed by No. 4 seed Concordia, 4-3 in another quarterfinal match-up.
Thursday's match was played to clinch as the Cougars won a pair of doubles match to claim an early 1-0 lead before winning No. 1, 2 and 5 singles matches to seal the team win. However, the Mavericks did receive a pair of set wins from
Tyler Landen and
Moises Cure in singles play.
Landen, playing at No. 3, won the second set of his unfinished match, 6-4 over Ryan Nuno after the Cougar junior, who was named to the Second Team All-PacWest squad on Wednesday, had taken the first, 6-3. Meanwhile, Cure won the first set of his No. 4 singles match, 6-4 over Leyton Bohren, a third team all-conference selection. They were then tied at 6 in the second set when that was left unfinished.
Elsewhere,
Christian Albrechtsen and Landen took PacWest Player of the Year Jakob Schnaitter and Bohren to extra games in their No. 1 doubles match, which eventually went 7-5 in the Cougars' favor. Schnaitter and Bohren are the nation's fifth ranked doubles duo, according to the Apr. 8, 2021 Oracle/ITA Division II Rankings.
The Cougars had also won at No. 2 doubles while the No. 3 doubles match was in a tie-breaker when it was called off after Schnaitter and Bohren's win. Cure and
Thiago Nejm were playing against APU's Dylan Parsley and Ethan Smith in that match.
Jandre van Wyk also won seven combined games in a 6-4, 6-3 No. 5 singles loss while Howe won five games in a 6-1, 6-4 set-back at No. 2 singles, which snapped his 4-match winning streak. Howe and van Wyk also saw their 8-match doubles winning streak snapped by Nuno and PacWest Freshman of the Year Sam Sippel at No. 2 doubles.
Friday's encounter with Point Loma is slated for 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. MDT).
