Freshman Pascal Engel earned his fourth win at No. 3 singles in the win against UC San Diego on Friday, April 11. Photo credit: Kimberly Smith
In the final match of the regular season, the No. 10-ranked Azusa Pacific men’s tennis team showed it is ready for the Pacific West Conference tournament next week by defeating No. 11 UC San Diego 7-2 on Friday, April 11.
The Cougars won four straight singles matches to take a commanding 6-1 lead. Sophomore Tomas Aranguiz’s win at the No. 6 spot clinched the victory for APU.
Sophomore Jan Meyer and junior Gary Yam stretched their record at No. 1 doubles to 8-0 by defeating senior Max Jiganti and junior Kona Luu 8-3. The No. 2 duo of senior Freddy Wilkens and Aranguiz returned and won the match against sophomore Horea Porutiu and freshman Daniel Minami 8-4. Freshmen Pascal Engel and Alan Leahy lost the final doubles game to senior Rajeev Herekar and junior Mark Meyer by the score of 8-6.
No. 7-ranked Wilkens started singles play with a 6-1, 6-4 victory against Herekar. This brings Wilkens’ hot streak to 19 straight victories.
No. 5-ranked Meyer beat Jiganti 6-1, 6-4 to improve his record to 18-3. Aranguiz’s win gave the Cougars their fifth point of the match and followed Meyer’s victory.
At the No. 3 spot, Engel defeated Ganesh Alagappan in three sets (6-2, 4-6, 6-2). This brought Engel’s overall record to 15-6 and his record at No. 3 to 4-1. Yam lost at the No. 5 spot to Porutiu 6-4, 6-4 and Leahy finished the match with a three-set win over Luu (6-1, 3-6, 6-1).
Azusa Pacific finished the regular season with a 17-5 record. The Cougars will now prepare for the PacWest tournament in Surprise, Ariz., which will begin Thursday, April 17. They will likely be a No. 3 seed in the tournament.