Story courtesy of Trinity University Sports Information
ATLANTA -- The 12th-ranked Trinity men’s tennis team fell 5-0 to the #1 and host Emory University in the regional third round of the NCAA Division III Championship tournament on Sunday afternoon.
Trinity completed its dual-match season with an 18-10 record. The Tigers defeated #36 Sewanee: The University of the South (TN) in Saturday’s second round, after receiving a bye. Emory improved to 22-3 and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals May 23 at Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The doubles matches were competitive and tightly played contests on Sunday. Emory got on the board by winning #2 doubles, as Chas Mayer and Clayton Niess lost 8-5. The Eagles took a 2-0 lead with a third doubles battle, as Wilson Lambeth and Eliot Guin came up short 9-8. The Tiger duo finished the season with a 12-4 mark. Paxton Deuel and Matt Tyer were edged 9-7 on the first line, as Emory led 3-0 going into the singles matchups.
Needing just two wins, Emory started off by taking #4 singles, with Tyer losing in straight sets. The clincher came on the third line as Lambeth lost in two. Deuel’s #1 singles match was early in the third set on Sunday, when the contest was halted. He finished the season with a 15-5 record.
The Tiger senior will carry the Tiger men’s banner to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the 32-draw NCAA Singles Championship May 26-28. The trip to Michigan will mark Deuel’s second appearance in the NCAAs, as he competed in 2014. Last fall, Deuel won the USTA/Intercollegiate Tennis Association Southwest Region Singles title for the second time, and advanced to the National Small College Championships. Deuel led the Tigers to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship last month, and was elected the SCAC Men’s Tennis Player of the Year for the second occasion.
Trinity competed in its 23rd NCAA postseason event, and the seventh in a row. Last year, the Tigers defeated Wilkes (PA) University and the host University of Mary Washington, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the opening rounds. Trinity advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals for the third consecutive year, where the Tigers lost to Middlebury (VT) College at Cincinnati, Ohio. The Tigers won the NCAA Championship in 2000, and finished third in 2014.