Stevens Wins 8-1 at St. John Fisher to Open Empire 8 Play
Mark Becker
Box score
PITTSFORD, N.Y. (April 6, 2013) – The Stevens Institute of Technology men’s tennis team opened its Empire 8 Conference schedule with an 8-1 victory at St. John Fisher College on Saturday morning. The Ducks, ranked No. 14 in the Northeast region, swept the doubles matches and won at first through fifth singles.
Stevens gets back to .500 at 5-5 this spring and start conference play 1-0 while St. John Fisher drops to 1-7 (0-1).
The Ducks went up a break early at both first and second doubles, with the No. 7 Northeast pairing of senior
Chris Rosensteel (East Windsor, N.J.) and freshman
Matthew Heinrich (Hendersonville, Tenn.) the first to finish at #1, breaking the Cardinals’ serve to end the match, 8-3. Freshman
Ben Foran (Whitefish Bay, Wis.) and senior
Shota Tasaki (Greenwich, Conn.) closed out their 8-4 victory at second doubles shortly after, and were quickly followed by junior
Derek Smith (Boise, Idaho) and freshman
Tyler Tisdale (Grapevine, Texas), who won third doubles, 8-4.
In singles play, Rosensteel, ranked No. 8 in the Northeast, went up a break at first singles to lead the first set, 4-1, and closed it out at 6-1 before sweeping the second set, 6-0. Tasaki finished up shortly after, taking the first set 6-1 and the second 6-0 to clinch the match for Stevens.
Heinrich, ranked No. 19 in the Northeast, cruised to the win at second singles, giving away just one game (6-0, 6-1) which Foran matched at third singles, going 6-1, 6-0 just minutes later. At fifth singles, Tisdale went up a break in the first game and broke serve again to end the first set at 6-3, then took an early 3-0 lead before being broken to go back on serve at 3-2. Then at 5-4 with St. John Fisher serving, Tisdale played his way into a deuce and finally took the match on his fourth match point, winning the second set 6-4. Smith suffered the Ducks’ only loss at sixth singles, playing a hard-fought 6-4, 2-6, 10-7 match.
Rosensteel, who just became the program leader in combined career wins on Wednesday, also tied both the career singles (70) and doubles (67) records. He will look to take sole posession of all three later in the day. Tasaki is also now just one win shy of tying for third all-time on the career doubles wvictory list.
Assistant Coach Arik Zeevy and the Ducks will head down to Alfred University (3-5) for a 2:30 p.m.