UC Santa Barbara
Cal Poly Men's Tennis Takes Second at Big West Conference Tournament
4/29/2018 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The Cal Poly men's tennis team finished their 2018 season on Sunday. The Mustangs lost to rival UC Santa Barbara in the Big West Conference Tournament Championship. No. 2 seeded Cal Poly and No. 1 Santa Barbara both swept their opponents in the semifinals and faced off in the championship, where the Gauchos won 4-0.
UC Santa Barbara went undefeated in conference and swept both their opponents in the postseason to win their fourth Big West Conference Championship in a row. UCSB has won 9 of the last 13 championships at Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
The championship match began with doubles. Santa Barbara won on courts two and three to secure the doubles point.
On court two, senior Karl Enander and junior Dominic Bechard lost to Simon Freund and Joseph Rotheram 6-4.
On court three, freshmen Andrew Whitehouse and Roman Shenkiryk fell to Joseph Gullian and Victor Krustev 6-3.
Junior Josh Ortlip and senior Axel Damiens were up 5-4 on court one against N. Moreno de Alboran and Anders Holm but didn't finish.
UCSB won on three courts in singles play to clinch the championship.
Court five finished first, where freshman Alexander Stater lost to Hironori Koyanagi 6-0, 6-2.
Alboran took down Ortlip on court one 6-3, 6-1.
Sophomore Antoine Noel lost on court three to Freund 6-4, 6-4 which clinched the match.
Cal Poly finished the season 18-7 overall and 4-1 in conference.
The Mustangs played their best tennis at home, going 11-1 at the Mustang Tennis Complex and only losing the final home match to UCSB. The program also appeared on the ITA Rankings top 50 teams at No. 44.
