Mitch Elofson, along with T. Connor Shives earned an 8-2 win at No. 3 doubles.
Release Courtesy of Nick Snow – ITA
St. Peter, Minn. – Day one of the 2015 ITA Division III National Men’s Team Indoor Championship, hosted by Gustavus Adolphus College, saw the top four seeds struggle but move on to Saturday’s semifinal round. In the morning matches, second seed Washington-St. Louis and third seed Emory were both pushed to 5-4, while the evening session produced a pair of 6-3 triumphs for No. 1 seed Trinity (TX) and No. 4 seed Johns Hopkins.
Top seed Trinity quickly found itself in a fight against host Gustavus Adolphus in the evening session. It was the Gusties who won the first doubles match off court, getting a quick 8-2 victory at the third spot from Mitch Elofson and T. Connor Shives. The other two matches were tight after the Tigers raced out to early leads, but the Trinity tandems of Jordan Mayer and Aaron Skinner at one and Adam Krull and Clayton Neiss at two hung on.
The Gusties did not back down despite the 2-1 deficit, as all three first sets of the first group of singles matches on went 6-4 or deeper. However, Trinity was able to win two of them, which seemed to take the crowd out of the match. After winning the first set 7-5, Adam Krull breezed past Motasem Al-Houni 6-1 in the second, while Skinner delivered a 6-4, 6-2 win over Brad Entwistle. The Tigers’ Charlie Curtis came through with the fifth and decisive point.
“Doubles was huge for us with Gustavus being on their home courts and having the home crowd behind them,” said Trinity head coach Russell McMindes. “It was important for us to come out early and try to take that away from them. It was big to close out the wins as No. 1 and No. 2 singles as well. I give Gustavus a lot of credit though. They came out with high intensity and had great crowd support throughout the match.”
Gustavus will be back on the courts tomorrow morning when it takes on Case Western Reserve University at 8:30 a.m.
For complete coverage of the 2015 ITA Division III National Men’s Team Indoor Championship, including links to live scores, photos and more, please visit the official ITA event page. Follow the ITA on Twitter, @ITAtennis, and like the ITA on Facebook for updates and news from the weekend’s events. Use the hashtag #D3Indoors for all tweets in regards to the event, or search the term “D3Indoors” to find others who are tweeting from across the nation about this year’s Championship, Feb. 20-22.