The Hillsdale College men's tennis team got through a big weekend on the calendar undefeated with another strong showing on the road against host Missouri-St. Louis on Sunday morning, taking a 5-2 victory over the Tritons.
Unlike Saturday's win at Illinois-Springfield, Hillsdale had to battle back from losing the doubles point. The Chargers' top pairing of Brennan Cimpeanu and Brian Hackman pulled out a 7-5 win at No. 1 doubles, but Hillsdale lost narrow matches at the other two positions to give UMSL a 1-0 advantage heading into singles play.
In singles, however, the Chargers dominated, taking five of the six matches to secure the victory. Cimpeanu continued his strong run of recent form with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over UMSL's Jose Mayorga at No. 1 singles, and freshman Aidan Pack pulled off an impressive come-from-behind victory at No. 3 singles for Hillsdale over the Tritons' Raphael Kerndl, rallying from a one-sided 6-0 first set loss with clutch play to win a tight second set 7-5, then taking a third set tiebreak 7-4 to secure a point for the Chargers.
Hillsdale won its final three matches in straight sets. Senior Tyler Conrad took a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Joshua Mackey of UMSL at No. 4 singles, junior Sean Barstow won a 7-4 first-set tiebreak and took the second set 6-2 to beat the Tritons' Tanin Ramnath at No. 5 singles, and junior Daniel Gilbert won 6-2, 6-1 over Pascal MacLean-Wood of UMSL at No. 6 singles as well.
Hillsdale is now 8-2 overall and picked up a couple of critical regional victories this weekend. The Chargers next head to Florida for Spring Break matches against southern powers Rollins and St. Leo beginning on March 12, in its final tune-ups before kicking off G-MAC play the following weekend.
Photo by Isabella Sheehan