ACU tennis was in action this weekend for the first time and played almost a hundred different matches. The Wildcat put up a 53-42 record at the courts of Air Force, New Mexico State, and the Midland Racquet Club.
In the Midland tournament, junior Nico Agritelly and freshman Josh Sheehy made the semifinals out of a 25 team doubles bracket which included beating teams from Texas, Texas A&M, and Southern Methodist. The duo was finally defeated by the top seeded overall doubles team from New Mexico.
Senior Kaysie Hermsdorf performed the best in the singles competition for the women, as she won the consolation bracket with a 2-1 record. She was defeated in her first match against North Texas, 7-6, 6-3, but came back strong to win her next two matches against Penn State, 6-2, 6-0, and Lamar, 8-4.
Junior Erin Walker, sophomore Henry Adams, and Agritelley all picked up singles victories against strong opponents. Sheehy had an 0-2 record, however, he was able to take both his matches to the third set.
“I was excited to make it to the semis because I had no idea what to expect going into the tournament.” Sheehy said. “There were a lot of big schools there but my partner (Agritelly) and I were confident that we could make an impact and compete with them.”
At the Air Force Invitational, the women racked up three titles and four runner-up performances as they competed with good competition including Colorado State, Eastern Michigan, Northern Colorado, Texas State, Utah State, Wyoming and host Air Force.
Sophomore Lucile Pothier came on strong and earned a perfect 6-0 record over the weekend. She picked up a victory in all of her matches and also three more with sophomore Whitney Williams in doubles.
Freshman Jordan Henry had a 2-1 record winning the flight five singles bracket, while Williams and senior Nada Marjanovic both had a strong finish in second to Air Force in Flight two and three.
The Wildcats went a a total of 9-9 in singles competition and 7-2 in the doubles competition, which was led by the pair of Marjanovic and junior Ansley Boarman and Henry and freshman Leah Davis in which they both went 2-1.
“These victories allowed me to see my progress since I arrived in Abilene.” Pothier said. “It will bring me a lot of confidence for the upcoming tournaments.
In the NM State Invitational, the eight men from ACU were able to combine for 21 wins out of the 30 singles matches they played in Las Cruces, New Mexico, led by junior Andrew Hutchinson who picked up an impressive 3-0 record winning the black draw, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Senior Brandon McCarty got the victory in the third place match in the black draw over his opponent from Grand Canyon, while in the white draw, sophomore Brad Gleason got the victory in the consolation championship along with a 3-1 record.
“I felt this weekend went very well.” freshman Sebastian Langdon said. “I didn’t know what to expect from myself individually or as a team, but as the tournament progressed, I felt like all of us played very well producing good results overall and was proud of our great effort.”
ACU tennis goes back to work on the weekend of October 9 as the men will go to New Mexico for the Lobo invitational and the women will take on the SMU invitational in Dallas.
