MASON, Ohio – The second-seeded Baldwin Wallace University men's tennis team advanced to the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament Championship with a 6-1 victory against third-seeded Otterbein University at the Linder Family Tennis Center.
In the OAC Tournament, all matches are ended when the winning team reaches five team points regardless of the current progress of other matches still on court. Each match will start with the three doubles matches and will continue with singles action until the winning five points are obtained. At times more than one match ends at the same time.
BW (24-4) will look to avenge its lone OAC regular season loss when it faces cross-town rival and OAC Regular Season Champion John Carroll University (12-7) in the championship match at 12 p.m. The winner of the OAC Tournament receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Tournament. Otterbein (12-7), who lost in last year's championship match, ends its season.
The Yellow Jackets won two of three matches to gain a 2-1 advantage. The duo of senior All-OAC and Academic All-OAC player Kyle Patterson (Wooster/ Triway) and freshman Dominic Polifrone (Hudson) gained the first point as they won at second doubles by a score of 8-2 and are now 23-7 this season The tandem of freshman Matt Harris(Akron/ Revere) and senior Kevin Fredrick (Archbald) earned the second points with an 8-5 victory at third doubles to improve to 17-7 on the year.
BW closed out the match as it won fifth and fourth singles while second and third singles finished simultaneously. First and sixth singles matches were unfished as the Yellow Jackets got their final points. Junior Nathan Katz (Upper Arlington/ Bexley) took fifth singles by scores of 6-0 and 6-1 to earn the third point and upped his record to 24-3 on the season. Polifrone took the fourth point at fourth singles by scores of 6-2 and 6-1 as he improved to 24-3 in his first season. Ganim earned the fifth at second singles and Patterson the sixth point as third doubles as both matches had identical scores of 6-2 and 6-3. Ganim is now 25-4 on the season and 86-19 in his career to rank sixth all-time in BW history while Patterson upped his record to 29-2 this season and is third all-time in school history with a record of 95-9.
Matches that were still on the court but were not finished included senior All-OAC player and 2015 OAC Men's Tennis Player of the Year Peter Harris at first singles as he led his match by scores of 6-4 and 4-3. Junior Jake Liebler (Medina) lost the first set in his match at sixth singles at 6-2, but was leading 2-1 in the second set.
The NCAA Division III Tournament begins on Friday, May 13 and Saturday, May 14 with first and second round matches.
