The Cornerstone Men's Tennis team traveled to Fort Wayne, IN today for a double header against the University of St. Francis and Huntington University.
The morning match against St. Francis had to be moved indoors because of weather conditions. Due to limited court availability, the match was played just until one team won the 5 points required to win the overall team match. Cornerstone wasted little time, taking all 3 doubles matches. The #1 Doubles team of Elijah Yi & Austin Hunt won 8-5, #2 Doubles Austin Hendrick & Sam Ottosen won 8-3, and #3 Doubles Andrew Son & Santiago Mackrey won 8-2. Play quickly turned to singles, where CU's Austin Hendrick won 6-2, 6-2 at #4 and Santiago Mackrey won 6-1, 6-1 at #5 to close out the match in under 2 hours.
The afternoon match against Huntington would not move along so quickly, however. Cornerstone got on the board first with a convincing 8-3 win at #3 Doubles. Huntington then tied the match with an 8-4 win at #1 Doubles. At #2 Doubles, Cornerstone fell behind a break early, but broke 2 times in the last 3 games to pull out the 8-6 win and give CU a 2-1 lead heading into singles.
Needing only to split the singles matches, Cornerstone did just that, with Austin Hunt, Santiago Mackrey, & Andrew Son picking up wins at #3, 5, & 6 singles. The highlight was Andrew Son clinching the overall team match with a 6-3, 7-6 win in a very odd match that included Andrew going down 2 breaks in the second set, but rallying back to win nonetheless.
Said Coach Erickson, "Today was a strange day. We had players all over the lineup who were sick and hurt and not able to perform as they would like to. Getting the quick win in the morning was helpful, but those disadvantages really caught up with us against Huntington. Still, I think we showed a lot of character to pull through and win the match against a perenially very good Huntington team even knowing that we weren't anywhere near full strength. Hopefully we can get some rest and get healthy heading into ITA Regionals this week."
Cornerstone will return to action on September 11-13 at the ITA Regional Tournament in Grand Rapids.
