(MOBILE, Ala.) This morning, the Westmont men’s tennis 2015 season came to an abrupt end after being defeated by Reinhardt University in the First Round of the NAIA Men’s Tennis National Championship. #13 Westmont seemingly had the odds stacked in their favor as they went up against #20 Reinhardt. While the injury plagued Warriors battled the entire time, Reinhardt eventually walked away with a 5-4 heartbreaking win over Westmont.
The Warrior men started off the day trailing 1-2 after doubles play. On court number one, Josh Barnard and Carl Lindqvist tried their very best to upend Maksim Yorsh and Nikita Hrynov. But long rallies and extremely well placed shots led to an 8-3 victory for the Eagles. On court number two, Christian Mathis and Travis Kimsey started off a little slow, but were able to rally back multiple times to put themselves back in a position to win. Unfortunately, Emory Deloach and Nicolas Duarte capitalized on their opportunities and closed out the match with an 8-5 win, putting their team up two matches to zero.
Court number three, featuring Jan Sibbel and Tommy Nightingale was the only doubles win for the Warriors this afternoon, but they snuck away with a 9-7 victory over Reinhardt.
Going in to singles play, the Warriors knew that they had some ground to make up. While some teams may crumble under the pressure, the Warriors did just the opposite. They rallied together and built momentum off of each other’s’ energy.
Travis Kimsey blazed a trail though his sets with great scores of 6-3, 6-0 which started the Warriors off strong and tied up the team scores at 2-2. While Lindqvist worked extremely hard on court number one, the experience of his opponent outmatched his play and gave the Eagles a 6-1, 6-3 victory.
Senior Josh Barnard played excellent tennis on court number three as he earned what would be his final collegiate career win with scores of 7-5, 6-1 over Nicolas Duarte. Barnard has been battling injuries for most of the season, but there was a determination in his eyes today. It was evident that he was going to lay it all on the line in this match in hopes of continuing his collegiate career for one more day. The lone senior wrapped up his time as a Warrior with a final 2-0 singles sweep.
On court three, Jan Sibbel played fundamentally sound tennis that gave him a 6-4, 6-3 win against Nikita Hrynov. This win put the Warriors up 4-3 in the overall team score. Christian Mathis played for a very, very long time on court four as he tried to lock in a Westmont team win. But for every point scored, Reinhardt was there to answer with a point of their own. The Eagles came out victorious in that match with set scores of 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
With the team score tied at 4-4, the entire match fell into the hands of Tommy Nightingale and his opponent Adam Rogers on court number six. As all the players, coaches and family members cheered them on, Nightingale and Rogers fought for every single point. Tommy won the first set pretty handily 6-3, but then dropped an extremely close second set 5-7 to Rogers. Tensions rose as the third set waged on. Each player was running on empty, but still flooring the gas—putting forth all the effort and energy left in their body. In true, dramatic final match form, the men hit 7-6 and went into a tiebreaker. After what seemed like endless amounts of ties and set points, Reinhardt came out the ultimate victor and won with a team score of 5-4.
The Warriors will close out their 2015 season with an overall record of 10-15.
