The past weekend the Trinity men’s tennis team split their matches against University of the Incarnate Word and McMurry State. Both games were played on Saturday, April 5 at home back to back. The first game was against UIW and the Tigers fell 4-5 in a very close match.

The Tigers started by winning all three doubles sets. Sophomore Paxton Deuel and senior Nicolas Moreno won at No. 1 doubles, junior Jordan Mayer and senior Greg Haugen won at No. 2 doubles and junior Charlie Curtis and freshmen Clayton Niess won at No. 3. The then proceeded to lose at No. 1, 2 and 3 doubles and win at No. 5 and 6, so then it came down to No. 4 where Moreno lost in a tight match.

“It was kind of a heart breaker, we were up 2-1 after doubles and went into the singles knowing they are very strong at the top and they won at 1, 2, 3 and we won at 5, 6 and it came to no 4 singles. Nicolas Moreno a senior captain last match on the courts, goes to a tie breaker has a couple match points, gets a unlucky on a few shots and fights off a few match points, but ultimately loses 10-8 in third set tiebreaker,” head coach Russell McMindes said. “It was great match over all though, everyone competed really strong, nothing to hang your head about or lose sleep over.”

Next the Tigers faced off against McMurry, a DII school, who they defeated 7-2. They swept the doubles 3-0 and lost No. 3 and No. 5, but won the rest.

“We had a tough match against UIW, it came down to the last point. We took that loss pretty hard but regathered ourselves and won against McMurry,” first-year Manny Brown adds.

McMindes adds, “with a quick turn around and emotional match earlier we swept the doubles 3-0 and it gave us confidence going into the singles. We ended up winning 7-2 but all in all I was pleased considering our matches were back to back and there was a rain delay.”

Doubles went well for the Tigers this weekend, which was a big positive since that is something they have been working to improve all season. In the past five matches the Tigers have gone 14-1 in doubles.

“Doubles have improved very much since the beginning of the season.  At the beginning of the season we went down 0-3 to Mcmurry in doubles and on saturday we went up 3-0 on Mcmurry in doubles,” Curtis said.

After defeating St. Mary’s 8-1 yesterday, the Tigers play tomorrow when they face off against University of Texas Tyler and then Texas Lutheran University in back to back matches at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. respectively.