Stockton, Calif. - The No. 68 Loyola Marymount Lions topped No. 72 Pacific men's tennis team, 4-3, in a grueling, nail-biter Friday at Pacific's Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center, snapping the Tigers' three-match WCC win streak.
Sem Verbeek was the lone player to cruise, as he won via retirement.
Doubles came down to the wire as LMU opened with a 6-3 win by Luke Bohuslav & Lukas Moenter over Miguel Diaz & Lance Ngo at third position. The Tigers answered back as the the No. 62 tandem of Verbeek & Jose Chamba completed a 6-3 win over Joat Farah & Errol Smith at first doubles. Charles Boyce & Cristobal Rivera gave LMU the point with a 6-4 win over Daniel Alameh & Alex Giannini at second singles.
After Verbeek won 6-2 in set one at first singles, Charles Boyce retired as the Tigers knotted the match at 1-1.
Smith slipped past Chamba, 7-5, 6-4 at third singles before Pacific posted a win at fourth singles as Diaz pulled away in the second set over Farah, 7-6 (9-7), 6-1.
Kumara Pardha Adavelly put Pacific in front, 3-2, as he finished off Moenter, 6-3, 0-6, 6-4, at sixth singles.
The Tigers needed to cap off second or fifth singles to take the match, with both courts deep into extended battles. Alex Giannini had rallied from down a set to force a third set against Luke Bohuslav, and after Giannini staving off elimination to force a tiebreaker,
Bohuslav finally emerged, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 (7-3).
The result on five brought the match down to second singles, where Rivera and Alameh were locked up in an extended match. Rivera eked out a 7-5 win in set one before Alameh rallied for a 6-3 set two win, but Rivera controlled set three, and gave the Lions the win, 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.
"Today was a tough match," head coach Ryan Redondo said. "Credit to LMU for hanging in longer and tougher. They were willing to go the distance today along with starting much quicker than we did. The doubles point really cost us, however, the guys fought pretty hard to get themselves set up for the win. We were two points from winning that dual. We have a quick turnaround with another great opportunity against Pepperdine tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.."
Pacific falls to 11-9 on the season, and suffers their first West Coast Conference loss of the year to sit at 3-1. LMU improves to 8-6 overall, 1-2 in WCC play.
The Tigers will face No. 54 Pepperdine at home on Saturday, with first serve at 1 p.m.
