SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – The #59 Union College men's tennis team headed into the postseason on a high note with a 6-1 win over St. Lawrence University on Sunday morning and afternoon at the Union Tennis Courts. Before the match, Union recognized senior
Christian Crowder for his four years of dedication to the program as part of Senior Day.
Union (10-9, 4-4 Liberty League) finishes the regular season in a three-way tie for fourth place with Rochester Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RIT earned wins over both teams to win the tiebreaker and place fourth, while Union beat RPI head-to-head to claim the fifth spot. As a result, the Garnet Chargers and the Tigers will face off in the first round of the Liberty League Tournament on Friday in Ithaca.
Junior
Daniel Saxe, sophomore
Vivaan Gupta and first-year
Simon Philip all earned two wins each for the Garnet Chargers, who won two doubles matches and five singles contests to pick up their fourth conference win of the year, matching the 2022-23 squad for the most in a season in program history.
Union earned the doubles point by winning matches at the bottom two flights. Philip and junior
Solen Bellemare got the match started well with a 6-3 second-doubles win over Bennett Stout and Charles Schepens before the Saints evened the score with a 6-4 first-flight win. Coming down to third doubles, Gupta and Saxe were tied 4-4 with Sebastian Boada and Aidan Baracao before earning a pivotal break and then winning the final game at love to clinch the point.
The home team rolled through the first four singles matches to complete the victory. Sophomore
Jesus Sosa started off with a 6-3, 6-1 second-singles win over Schepens, followed soon after by Philip completing his perfect day by beating Stout by a 6-3, 6-1 score at the fourth flight. Sophomore
Arhan Gupta earned the fourth point at third singles by knocking off Rowan Bepler, 6-4, 6-3, while Saxe won his second match of the day right after that with a 6-4, 6-2 fifth-singles triumph over Ryan Tingley.
Vivaan Gupta finished off his day with a hard-fought sixth-singles victory over Preston Mcarthy, doubling up in the supertiebreaker to complete a 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), (10-5) win.
Union will begin Liberty League Tournament play with a first-round matchup against RIT on Friday at Cornell University's Reis Tennis Center.
