SURPRISE, Ariz.— Steven Howe and
Jandre van Wyk moved another step closer to a potential Colorado Mesa University men's tennis record as they won a doubles match while they and
Thiago Nejm all won sets in singles matches in a consolation semifinal dual against Point Loma Nazarene University on Friday afternoon here at the Pacific West Championships.
However, the eighth-seeded Mavericks dropped the dual, 4-0 and will play long-time rival MSU Denver for the third time this month in Saturday's seventh place match, slated for a 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. MDT) start here at the Surprise Tennis Center.
CMU is now 9-9 on the year. MSU Denver, seeded sixth, is 7-11 after falling 4-0 to seventh-seeded Biola in the other consolation semifinal match.
PLNU, seeded fifth, improved to 5-9 with Friday's win and will face Biola in the fifth place match on Saturday.
In Friday's encounter with the Sea Lions, Howe and van Wyk claimed a No. 2 doubles win over Alejandro Castaneda and Lukas Schuster by a 6-3 margin. However, PLNU still won the doubles point with 7-5 and 6-4 wins in the first and third flight, respectively.
Howe and van Wyk are now 14-4 in doubles this year and have won nine of their last ten matches. They were Third Team All-Pac West selections on Wednesday and could set a CMU record for single-season doubles winning percentage if they avoid defeat on Saturday. Howe and van Wyk now have a .778 mark, 20 points higher than the current record of .758, set by Jordan Chomko and Nick Provenza, who went 25-8 during the 2008-09 season.
In Friday's singles matches, Howe and Nejm were both leading their respective singles matches as well. Howe won the first set of his No. 2 match against PLNU's Yuki Okamoto, 6-4. Okamoto was leading the second 5-4 when that and three other singles affairs were left unfinished when the Sea Lions clinched the dual. Nejm was leading Jasdeep Paintal, 4-6, 6-3, 1-0 early in the third set of his No. 6 singles match.
Meanwhile, van Wyk was held without a game win in the first set of his No. 5 singles match against Schuster. However, the Maverick redshirt freshman, who has a team-high 24 combined singles and doubles victories this season, took the second set, 6-3 before Schuster clinched PLNU's overall win with a 6-2 third-set triumph.
PLNU also won the No. 1 and No. 3 singles matches in straight sets.
