The Gustavus men’s tennis team split two road matches this weekend defeating Saint Mary’s 9-0 in Winona on Friday and falling to Kalamazoo 7-2 in Milwaukee, Wis. on Sunday afternoon. The Gusties are now 10-8 overall and 6-0 in the MIAC.
On Friday, the Gusties remained unbeaten in MIAC play with a 9-0 win at Saint Mary’s. Although Gustavus did not drop an individual match against the Cardinals, the #1 singles and #1 doubles matches were closely contested. At #1 doubles, Amrik Donkena and Tyler Johnson defeated Mike Lunka and Bobby Steingraeber 9-8 winning the tiebreaker 7-1. At #1 singles, Amrik Donkena had to rally to defeat Mike Lunka as he lost the first set 5-7 and then won the second set 6-1 before winning the superbreaker 10-4.
On Sunday, Gustavus saw its three-match winning streak come to an end with a 7-2 loss to Kalamazoo College in Milwaukee, Wis. The Gusties jumped out to a 2-1 lead after doubles play, but the Hornets rallied to win all six singles matches although four of the six matches were very tightly contested. In doubles play, Donkena and Johnson, who are ranked #6 in the ITA Central Region rankings, picked up an important win over Cyrus Jadun and Patrick Boyd, who are ranked #3 in the Central Region rankings by the score of 8-6. Patrick Clark then teamed with Kyle Olson at #2 doubles and defeated Nate Eddy and Jason Brown 8-3.
In singles play, the Gusties dropped narrow decisions in four of the six matches including the #1 position where Donkena lost to Jadun 6-7 (6-8), 4-6, the #3 position where Johnson lost to Boyd 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, the #4 position where Daniel Pomeranc lost to Mark Denenfield 6-3, 1-6, 2-6, and the #6 position where Kyle Olson lost to Tom Cafmeyer 5-7, 5-7.
The loss snapped a 10-year win streak by the Gusties over Kalamazoo. The last time Gustavus had lost to the Hornets was a 1-6 setback on April 18, 1999.