his past weekend, Elizabethtown College’s men’s tennis team traveled to Wilkes-Barre, Pa. to finish their fall season by competing in the 2013 Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Individual Championships. This two-day event was met with success on the first day, but the Jays fell short moving forward in the tournament. Singles play saw five of the Blue Jays top six players’ move to their quarterfinal matches, but got knocked out before reaching the semifinals. Doubles play fared better for the Jays, with the top team of senior Cole Turula and first-year Ryan Caris and a second team of junior Michael Cannon and first-year Ben Geiger moving on to their respective semifinals match.
Singles play was a point of struggle for the Jays on Saturday. Top-flight entry Turula was able to win in straight sets in his first match against Dan Fowler of Eastern 6-3, 6-3, but was knocked out in his next match by the No. 2 seed George Parkhurst of King’s in straight sets 6-0, 6-1. The rest of the entries for Etown, Cannon (No. 2), senior Joe Kirchner (No. 3), first-year Matthew Hornbaker (No. 5) and sophomore Evan Hinkley (No. 6), all had a similar fate. Cannon won his first round match in straight sets (6-1, 6-0) against Arcadia’s Wesley Wei. Kirchner went on to win the tiebreaker against Claude Purcell of Albright 4-6, 7-5, 10-3. Hornbaker defeated Nick Hendry of Misericordia 6-1, 6-2 while Hinkley downed Stevenson’s Peter Hoblitzell 4-6, 6-2, 10-8.
The first day of doubles saw big wins for the Blue Jays. Etown sent two teams to the semifinals. The team of Turula and Caris was dominant in their pair of wins on Saturday, defeating Hood’s Cameron Proctor and Vladislav Sluchenkov 8-4 in the first round and FDU-Florham’s Ryan Kearns and AJ Warden 8-6 in the second round. The team of Cannon and Geiger were equally as dominant on Saturday, topping Ian Moore and Claude Purcell of Albright 8-0 and Christopher Brittingham and Peter Shuck of Messiah 8-3. However, both teams faced the top seeds in their brackets on Sunday. Neither Etown team could pull off the upset. Turula and Caris were bested by the Parfianowicz brothers of Wilkes in eight straight games. Cannon and Geiger fell in a similar fashion to Alex Makos and Steven Wilson of Wilkes 8-0.
With the fall season wrapped up, the Jays look forward to starting their traditional season this coming March, beginning with their spring training trip to Hilton Head Island, SC.
