The Wildcat tennis teams made an appearance last weekend at the Midland Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational, representing ACU well in a highly competitive tournament full of NCAA Division I teams.
In the doubles bracket, sophomore Hans Hach and senior Nick Plum competed against 64 other athletes, being the only pair in the tournament from a DII university. They beat Texas’s duo Alex Hilliard and Daniel Whitehead in the first round with a score of 8-5, and then Boise State’s Nathan Sereke and Scott Sears 8-4.
Hach and Plum made it all the way to the quarterfinals, only losing by one point to Tulsa’s Grant Ive and Tristan Jackson 9-8. “We lost in a very close last match. We just got unlucky, and they won the tiebreaker,” Plum said.
Hach won his first round singles match against Carlo Ho from New Mexico 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. “It was a really long match,” Hach said. “It was really, really tough, but I was able to pull it out.”
He then played against Sereke (Boise State) in a 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 battle, ultimately forcing Sereke to the consolation bracket. Despite his previous comeback, Hach fell to Soren Hess-Olesen, (Texas) the tournament’s third place player in just two sets in round 16: 6-2, 6-1.
Plum was beat out of his opening match in the singles division to Ive (Tulsa) 6-4, 6-3, and then lost to Leif Berger (Rice) in his consolation match 6-4, and 7-6.
The team was content to play the way it did in such a prestigious tournament. “We got to play all DI teams such as Dartmouth, TCU, and Texas,” Hach said. “We will go to regionals soon, and the competition will be much easier after playing such good teams. We have a lot of confidence right now.”The women’s tennis team also made an appearance in the tournament. In the singles bracket, Laura Mongin beat Alyssa Caffey (New Mexico) in two quick sets 6-3, 6-1 in the consolation bracket after losing in the first round to Sheri Oliver. (Texas A&M)
Julia Mongin, Laura’s twin sister and the defending Racquet Club singles champ lost in the second round to Katie Gater, (Rice) 6-1, 5-7, 7-6 in three tough sets. Despite the defeat, Julia beat New Mexico’s Michaela Oldani 6-3, 6-2 in the consolation match before losing out to tournament ranked No. 2 Samantha Vickers (Tulsa) 6-1, 6-4.
ACU’s women’s tennis will play this weekend in Bloomington, Indiana at the Indiana University Invitational. The men’s team will compete in two weeks at the ITA South Central Regional in Springfield, Missouri.
