Gonzaga University
University of the Pacific
Upset Bid Falls Just Short against Pacific
2/6/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
SPOKANE, Wash.--The Gonzaga University men's tennis team fought valiantly, but the their upset bid of No. 73 Pacific fell short as the Bulldogs lost 4-3 to the Tigers Saturday afternoon at The Stevens Center in Spokane.
The Zags got out to a roaring start in doubles play, taking either 4-1 or 4-2 leads on every court before closing in on the doubles point. GU's third doubles team, senior Vicente Varas and junior Ronzai Saurombe, drew first blood with a 6-1 win. The Zags then clinched the point on the court No. 1, where Hayden Smith and Jordan Smith dispatched Pacific's duo of Sem Verbeek and Miguel Diaz 6-2.
On court No. 2, the pair of Emilio Moreno and Ruadhan O'Sullivan were even at 5-all with their Tiger opponents when that contest was halted.
The match evened up during singles play with Pacific pulling off the comeback entirely in individual matches. The visitors tied the team contest at one apiece with a win at No. 4 singles, but O'Sullivan took the lead right back for Gonzaga one court up. He beat Diaz in consecutive 6-3 sets for the win, his third of the dual season.
The Tigers won the third singles match to finish, tying the team portion once again. They took the lead with the next match to finish, the fifth singles contest. During that No. 5 contest, Saurombe and opponent Bernard Oliveira dueled all throughout the first set, going to a tiebreak. They remained even in the tiebreak until the Tiger prevailed 7-6 (9). Oliveira then took the second 6-0 for the point.
Moreno countered with a win at No. 6 singles, bringing the team contest to its' third tie score. The freshman from Mexicali, Mexico breezed through his first set 6-1, but the Tigers' Lance Ngo fought back with a 4-6 second set win. In the decisive third set, Moreno jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but Ngo countered by winning the next two to even the score. Moreno then won the next game, but Ngo once again tied the set at 3-3. At that point, the Bulldog won the next two, breaking Ngo's serve and holding his own. Ngo did pick up one more game, but Moreno put away the Tiger to win 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 and give GU its' third point of the match.
With Moreno's win, everything came down to the No. 2 singles contest of Jordan Smith versus Daniel Alameh. Despite suffering an injury in the first set, Smith forced a tiebreak in that frame. Alameh took the tiebreaker by a score of 7-4, but Smith bounced back to force a deciding third set. In that third set, Alameh took the lead during the middle of the set and hung on to seal the match for Pacific.
"As a whole, I'm really proud of the effort the guys put in today," said Gonzaga head coach Peter MacDonald. "The doubles was the best I've ever seen as I've been here. Across the board, every team came out to win today and played well. We knew that this would be a tough match; if anything, the guys see that we're right there with anyone in this conference. It didn't work out for us today, but we've got a lot of matches ahead of us and something to look forward to."
The Zags (2-2, 0-1 WCC) resume conference action Saturday, Feb. 13, with a match down at Portland. That contest will begin at 1:00 p.m. in Portland's Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center.
