HANOVER, N.H. – Dartmouth men's tennis opened the New Year on Saturday with a 6-1 victory over Navy at the Boss Tennis Center.
"This was a great start for us as a group," head coach
Xander Centenari said. "I'm really pleased with the team effort across the board, both from a competitive and a supportive standpoint. First of all, credit to Navy for really pushing us in the doubles point. We were down a break on court one and the margins were really small on courts two and three.
"The doubles point proved to be good momentum for us, particularly because we had to pull one of our guys from singles at the last minute," Centenari continued. "Speicher did a great job coming out firing on court six on short notice. Our team has a lot of depth and it was really beneficial for us today. This was a great first test for us and we will build on it as we prepare for Alabama and LSU on the road."
The Big Green won the doubles point following victories at all three positions.
Peter Conklin and
Casey Ross started things off with a 6-3 win at the No. 2 position, while
Charlie Broom and
David Horneffer had a 7-5 victory at the top spot.
Dan Martin and
Anders Gibbons had a very close 7-6(6) win at the No. 3 position.
Dartmouth started singles with four straight victories. Conklin,
John Speicher,
Alejandro Quiles and Martin all had two-set defeats of their Midshipmen opponents before Navy picked up its lone win at the No. 5 spot. Horneffer followed that up with a narrow victory over Derrick Thompson at the No. 2 position, dropping the first set, 7-6(5), before rebounding to win the next, 7-6(8), and the tiebreak, 10-6.
Next weekend, the Green will be on the road, heading out to play Alabama on Friday and LSU two days later.
1) Broom/Horneffer (Dartmouth) def. Ton/Thompson (Navy), 7-5
2) Conklin/Ross (Dartmouth) def. Dabek/Durham (Navy), 6-3
3) Martin/Gibbons (Dartmouth) def. Fishkin/Wilson (Navy), 7-6(6)
Order of finish: 2,1,3
1) Martin (Dartmouth) def. Ton (Navy), 7-6(2), 6-1
2) Horneffer (Dartmouth) def. Thompson (Navy), 6-7(5), 7-6(8), 10-6
3) Conklin (Dartmouth) def. Durham (Navy), 6-0, 6-0
4) Quiles (Dartmouth) def. Fishkin (Navy), 6-4, 6-2
5) Dabek (Navy) def. Gibbons (Dartmouth), 6-4, 6-4
6) Speicher (Dartmouth) def. Wilson (Navy), 6-2, 6-1
Order of finish: 3,6,4,1,5,2