College Tennis News - Cal Tech slips by Linfield 5-4 in season finale

PASADENA, Calif. – Zachery Lyons (Sr., Vancouver, Wash.) completed his final collegiate tennis match on top, winning both his singles and doubles matches, but the Linfield senior’s gritty effort Sunday wasn’t enough to earn Linfield a win over Cal Tech in the Wildcats’ season finale. Cal Tech won the nonconference match 5-4 at the Braun Tennis Courts.

A Linfield victory would have avoided the first winless season by a Wildcats team in program history. Linfield completed its 2013 season with an overall record of 0-13. Cal Tech (1-18) enjoyed its first win of the season.

Lyons and partner Lukas Kleinman (Soph., Vancouver, Wash.) scraped out an 8-6 victory over the Beavers’ Joshi Devashish and Luka Mernik in the No. 1 doubles flight. The duo improved to 5-2.

Linfield’s Micah Roos (Soph., Port Angeles, Wash.) and Tim Hawkins (Fr., Boise, Idaho) prevailed 8-4 over Cal Tech’s Amol Kamat and Ishan Mehta at No. 2. The Beavers captured the third flight with Joshi Rushikesh and JD Co-Reyes topping the Wildcats’ Alex Mangan (Fr., Klamath Falls, Ore.) and Joel Trousdale (Soph., Hillsboro, Ore.) by an 8-3 count.

Lyons also demonstrated his resilience in singles play, coming from one set down at No. 1 singles to beat Devashish 6-7, 6-2, 10-5. Kleinman collected Linfield’s other team point at No. 5 singles, beating Kamat 6-2, 6-1.

Cal Tech won the remaining four singles pairings. Rushikesh got by Roos 6-3, 6-3 at No. 2, Mernik defeated Trousdale 6-2, 6-0 at No. 3, and Alex Henny set down Hawkins 6-3, 6-0 at No. 4. Co-Reyes won a first-set tiebreaker on his way to downing Mangan 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 at No. 6.