The Monmouth College men’s tennis team celebrated Senior Night with a 6-3 win over Illinois College on Monday. The Midwest Conference match was postponed by rain last Tuesday and marks the only on-campus, outdoor match of the season as all others were forced indoors by rain and cold.
The Scots fell behind early, dropping two of the three doubles matches. Seniors Andrew Shie (Davenport, Iowa) and Brendan Guenther (Pekin, Illinois) grabbed a win at No. 1 doubles 8-5. Sawyer Day (Cupertino, California) and Andre Myklebust (Cambridge, Wisconsin) lost at No. 2 doubles 8-6 and Matt Simonson (Monmouth, Illinois) and Nick Robertson (Covington, Georgia) fell 8-7 (7-5) at No. 3 doubles.
“Being down 2-1 after doubles is not where we wanted to be as we started slow with some of our worst doubles of the year,” said coach Brian Jordan. “Our strength has been our singles play and we showed that today taking five of six in singles.”
Guenther set the tone for the Scots in singles, rolling to a 6-0, 6-0 win at No. 2 to get Monmouth on the board in singles. Simonson was next off the courts, winning at No. 5 singles 6-1, 6-2 to put the Scots ahead 3-2. Shie finished off his opponent at No. 1 singles 7-5, 6-2 and when Myklebust won at No. 4 singles 6-4, 6-4 the Scots had the match clinched.
“Getting those two quick singles points flipped the script and put us at an advantage,” said Jordan. “I was starting to question if we would get a match on campus without rain but the weather gods were with us today and it was great to be out here.”
Day went to a tiebreak before winning at No. 3 singles 7-5, 1-6, 10-3. The final match of the night went to IC as Robertson battled but fell in a tiebreak 5-7, 6-4, 11-9.
The Scots head on the road Saturday for a pair of MWC matches at Grinnell College (9am) and at Cornell College (3pm).
***Report Courtesy of Nathan Baliva, Monmouth College***
