CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. – The No. 8 nationally ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team opened the spring portion of the 2014-15 campaign with victories against host Wabash College and Augustana College (Ill.) on Saturday at the Collett Tennis Center.
The Spartans (2-0) defeated Wabash (0-1), 6-3, and Augustana (0-1), 8-1.
Versus Wabash, the Spartans fell behind, 2-1 after doubles play, thanks to a rally by the Little Giants' No. 1 tandem. CWRU's point came via an 8-3 win at No. 3 by sophomore Phil Gruber (Springboro, Ohio/Springboro) and junior Viswajit Simhadri (Saratoga, Calif./Lynbrook) against Daniel Delgado and William Reifeis.
From there, the match flipped in the Spartans favor with wins in five of the six singles matches.
Senior Will Drougas (Roanoke, Va./Salem) with a 6-0, 6-2 win at No. 2 and Simhadri with a 6-3, 6-1 victory at No. 3 were first to finish. Junior CJ Krimbill (Scottsdale, Ariz./Desert Mountain) then bumped the CWRU advantage to 4-2 with a 7-5, 6-2 win at No. 1.
The final points came courtesy of sophomore Joshua Dughi (Miami, Fla./Ransom Everglades) at No. 5 (6-1, 6-1) and sophomore Kevin Dong (Bishop, Ga./Athens Academy) at No. 6 (7-5, 7-6 (7-4)).
Against Augustana, the Spartans took two of three points in doubles with Krimbill and junior Louis Stuerke (Overland Park, Kan./Blue Valley Northwest) grabbing the first point by a score of 8-2 at No. 1 versus Samuel Totten and Eric Pohl. The freshman duo of Manfred Barrios (Golden Valley, Minn./Hopkins) and Tytus Chen (San Jose, Calif./Mountain View) picked up the next point with a 9-9 win at No. 3 against Patrick Lenz and Jonathon Elsey.
In singles, Krimbill was the first to finish with a 6-3, 6-3 victory at No. 1, while Simhadri was next at No. 2 by counts of 6-0, 6-2. The remainder of the points came from Stuerke at No. 3 (7-6, 6-0), Barrios at No. 4 (6-2, 6-2), Chen at No. 5 (6-1, 6-0) and senior Bas van Lent (Wexford, Pa./Pine-Richland) at No. 6 (8-4).
The Spartans now return home to host a pair of key early-season matchups at the Cleveland Racquet Club. No. 12 Kenyon College is the opponent on Friday, February 6 at 7:00 p.m. No. 17 University of Chicago is then in town for a 6:00 p.m. matchup on Saturday, February 7.
