ORLANDO, Fla. – The Ursinus men's tennis team earned an 8-1 win over Ohio Wesleyan on Thursday afternoon at the USTA campus.
With the win, the Bears improved to 3-2 overall on the season and won their second-straight and final match down in Florida. Meanwhile, the Bishops of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) fell to 4-9 overall.
Ursinus opened the match with momentum as they took the early 3-0 lead off a sweep in the doubles matches. The sophomore duo of Darby Rogers and Rob Ritchie kicked things off with an 8-2 win over Marcelo Aguilar and Grant Brooks. Sophomore Ethan Yu and junior Noah Mandel tallied an 8-2 victory at the No. 3 spot over Tucker Strawser and Elliot Spicer before the No. 1 duo of sophomore Lars Jespersen and Will Oberholtzer polished off the doubles sweep with an 8-5 win over Jose Mancilla and Alex Riess.
Jespersen tallied the first win in the singles for the Bears as he earned a hard-fought 6-2, 7-5 win over Mancilla at the No. 1 spot and Oberholtzer bested Riess 6-3, 6-4 at the No. 2 singles spot to clinch the match for the Bears. Rogers outlasted Strawser 6-4, 7-5 at the No. 4 singles position before Ritchie rallied past Aguilar 4-6, 7-5 (10-7) at the No. 3 singles spot. Senior Simbarashe Kanjanda earned a thrilling three-set win of his own at the No. 6 spot as he took down Spicer 6-3, 4-6, (10-8). Mandel suffered the lone defeat for the Bears in the match as he was outlasted in a three-set thriller by Brooks 3-6, 6-3, 10-12 at the No. 5 singles position
The Bears will return to action on Thursday, March 17th as they will travel to face Rutgers-Camden at 3:30 p.m. in non-conference action.