The No. 16 ranked Trinity men’s tennis team recently concluded a very successful home weekend, bring in two wins for the team. The men played Gustavus Adolphus College and Linfield College, winning 5-4 and 8-1 respectively.
The Sunday started off with the men squaring off against Gustavus. Losing the first doubles match of the day, the team fought to make a comeback, with the doubles team of senior Chas Mayer and senior Clayton Niess winning round two.
The Tiger’s singles matches were especially successful, with sophomore Wilson Lambeth, sophomore Liam Crawley, first year Jordan Pitts, and first year McKenna Fujitani all winning their matches. The team finished the first half of their day with a 5-4 victory against the No. 19 ranked school, showing their ability to compete against strong competition.
“The other teams we have played have all been very strong teams that have challenged us,” Pitts said. “One thing that we have been struggling with is that our senior captains have not been healthy to play. As a team, we just need to continue training hard and working together if we want to be successful. We have the potential.”
The team then went into playing Linfield College and immediately took the first two doubles points, almost getting a doubles sweep but were narrowly edged out of such with a 9-8 win for the Wildcats. However, the Tigers came back extremely strong, sweeping all six doubles matches. Lambeth had an exceptional performance, managing to go 6-0 in both of his matches, giving him and the team confidence going forward.
“Looking forward we really just need to play as a team, playing with a lot of fire and grit. There are plenty of tough teams out there, but we believe we have the depth of all of them,” Lambeth said. “For myself I just need to have confidence in my ability to compete and beat the top players. So far we have great team chemistry that needs to continue going forward. We may not be regarded as a top five team, but we have a deep team and we expect to go far in the NCAA tournament. I know our guys will compete hard.”
The team is looking forward to the rest of the season, where they expect themselves to be competitive at the national level and fight for a championship. Despite losing two key players to graduation, they are looking strong and are working on stepping up to the plate.
“I want to start by saying we have a surprisingly capable team this year. We lost two major players over the summer to graduation “” Adam Krull and Paxton Deuel “” but everyone has stepped up and made a point to improve in response. Thoughts are positive and attitudes are focused,” Crawley said. “I believe each and every one of us has something to improve on, and individual focus on defects should be central in our approach going forward. The goal is to win a National Championship, that’s how we will know we’ve maximized our potential.”
