The Trinity men’s tennis team finished last Saturday, Feb. 8, with a 9-0 sweep against DIII Schreiner University then a 4-3 loss against DI University of Texas at San Antonio.
In the first meet, against Schreiner on Saturday morning at home, Trinity started with three doubles wins and then closed with singles that were all won in straight sets.
“Saturday morning at Schreiner was our first Division III opponent. We went with a bit of a split team format,” said head coach Russell McMindes. “We went with our starters in doubles and more of our reserve guys in the singles to give everybody a little bit of match time and make sure our starters were ready to go and rested for the UTSA match because we knew that was going to be the tougher of the two. Schreiner went fairly routinely, got everyone good match time. Everyone won their match, won 9-0.”
Players also feel that Schreiner was a run-of-the-mill game.
“The games this weekend went well. The first one we took care of business and won against a hard-working team,” said junior Pablo Diaz Boom.
Later during the day Trinity headed over to UTSA to face their second DI competition of the season so far. Junior Charlie Curtis and first-year Clayton Niess won at doubles at the No. 3 spot, but lost doubles overall due to a No. 1 and 2 doubles loss. Trinity then went on to win singles at No. 1,5 and 6, but lost at 2, 3 and 4.
“We had very concise matches in which we came out and performed as we expected. I had some trouble getting into the singles match against UTSA but was able to get back into the second set, unfortunately losing in the tie-break,” said senior captain Nicolas Moreno.
McMindes adds, “We lost this one 3-4, but we competed very well; there were a lot of bright spots. The Division I rules for doubles make it a little tough to evaluate. They have different rules as far as scoring and formats and stuff like that. Our number-one doubles team, even though they lost 6-3, they had four games where they lost a sudden death point so it could have been the other way around. It was close. Paxton Deuel is a machine. Even though we ended up losing 3-4, there were very encouraging results still and doubles I think is getting better.”
For their upcoming games, the Tigers hope to improve on the skills they have so far.
“We want to keep working on the energy and the confidence. Little by little I am getting back to where I was at the end of last year’s season, but I still need to keep working hard and stay positive,” Moreno said.
Next up for the Tigers are matches against Tyler Junior College, Mary Hardin-Baylor University and Midwestern State.
The match versus Tyler will be the second time Trinity has faced them this year. The first time the two teams met on Feb. 1, Tyler came ahead with a narrow 5-4.
“Against Tyler we won at 3 doubles, but we lost at 1 and 2, and in that match we split the singles and ended up losing 4-5, so we’re hoping that this go-around our doubles are getting better and we can at least get two of the three,” McMindes said.
The Tyler game is Friday, Feb. 14 at home at 3 p.m. Then, the Tigers have two home matches Saturday, Feb. 15, starting with Mary Hardin-Baylor at 9 a.m and Midwestern State at 3 p.m.
