The Hillsdale College men's tennis team closed its week at Hilton Head Island in the PTR Spring Tennis Fest with a bang on Wednesday, going toe-to-toe with a NCAA DI program in the University of St. Louis and taking a 6-1 loss that was much closer than the score appeared.
While the Chargers fell to the Billikens, they were a few games away from flipping the match and potentially walking away with an upset victory. Hillsdale was close throughout the three doubles matches, eventually falling by tight 6-4 margins at No. 1 and No. 3 doubles to drop the doubles point to St. Louis.
In singles play, senior Tyler Conrad got a big 6-7 (3), 6-2, 13-11 victory over the Billikens' Andres Castellanos, pulling out a marathon super-tiebreak in the third set to secure a impressive win on the court for the Chargers.
Both freshman Henry Hammond and senior Daniel Gilbert also put in impressive performances at No. 5 and No. 6 singles, respectively, for the Chargers. Each took their St. Louis opponent to a third set, with Hammond falling in a 10-3 super-tiebreak to Theo Ortis of St. Louis, and Gilbert dropping a 10-5 tiebreak to the Billikens' Valentin Vasquez in tight matches.
Hillsdale falls to 5-6 overall with the loss but can take great confidence from their play against a team from the top division in men's college tennis into their first conference match in 10 days. The Chargers will host Kentucky Wesleyan on Saturday, March 23 to open up G-MAC play.
Photo by Anthony Lupi