SPOKANE, Wash. – The No. 31 BYU men’s tennis team fell 4-3 to Gonzaga on Friday.
“We dominated and had a great presence to take the doubles point,” BYU head coach Brad Pearce said. “Gonzaga dug in, had great crowd support, and got the best of us in singles play. Sean did a great job today; very pleased with his performance. We’ll learn what we need to from today and be looking to play a more complete match tomorrow against Portland.”
The Cougars (14-3, 3-1 WCC) started out strong by claiming the doubles point over the Zags (10-5, 1-1 WCC). Matthew Pearce and Mateo Vereau Melendez quickly defeated Vincent Rettke and Kyle Everly 6-0 at No. 3 doubles. Sean Hill and Jeffrey Hsu clinched the doubles point for BYU at No. 1 doubles with a 6-3 victory over Sam Feit and Ruadhan O’Sullivan.
The West Coast Conference rival, Gonzaga, came out tough in singles, taking the first two matches. Vereau fell to Everly 3-6, 0-6 at No. 3 singles and Pearce lost 2-6, 6-7 to Hunter Egger at No. 6 singles.
Hill battled it out at No. 1 singles to pull a 6-3, 6-1 win for the Cougars over Feit and to tie the match 2-2.
The Zags were resilient and managed to win two more singles matches to secure their 4-2 win over the Cougars. Sam Tullis fell to Rettke 5-7, 4-6 at No. 4 singles and despite his efforts, Ben Gajardo was bested by Moreno in a close three-set match of 3-6, 6-3, 3-6.
The Cougars remain on the road to face Portland tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. PDT. Links to live stats and a live stream are available on the men’s tennis schedule page.
MATCH RESULTS
Gonzaga 4, #31 BYU 2,
DOUBLES RESULTS
- #44 Sean Hill/Jeffrey Hsu (BYU) def. FEIT, Sam/O'SULLIVAN, Ruadhan (GON) 6-3
- HOMEDES DUALDE, Simon/MORENO, Emilio (GON) vs. Sam Tullis/Ben Gajardo (BYU) 1-4, unfinished
- Mateo Vereau/Matthew Pearce (BYU) def. RETTKE, Vincent/EVERLY, Kyle (GON) 6-0
Order of finish: (3, 1)
SINGLES RESULTS
- #123 Sean Hill (BYU) def. FEIT, Sam (GON) 6-3, 6-1
- O'SULLIVAN, Ruadhan (GON) vs. Jeffrey Hsu (BYU) 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 1-0, unfinished
- EVERLY, Kyle (GON) def. Mateo Vereau (BYU) 6-3, 6-0
- RETTKE, Vincent (GON) def. Sam Tullis (BYU) 7-5, 6-4
- MORENO, Emilio (GON) def. Ben Gajardo (BYU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3
- EGGER, Hunter (GON) def. Matthew Pearce (BYU) 6-2, 7-6 (7-4)
Order of finish: (3, 6, 1, 4, 5)
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