photo credit Mitch Blankespoor
Indianapolis – The No. 3 seed Transylvania men's tennis team's rising tournament run came to an end on Sunday as they fell to the Rose-Hulman Fightin' Engineers, 5-0 in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference championship match at the West Indy Racquet Club.
Transylvania entered the day fresh off of an upset of No. 2 seed Earlham on Saturday, an impressive 5-2 match win. Having beaten Earlham in the tournament less than a month after losing to the Quakers in the regular season schedule, the Pioneers were aiming to do the same to Rose-Hulman who won in Lexington just eight days before.
The Pioneers began the championship with a trio of doubles matches against Rose-Hulman, and the Engineers accelerated to wins in all three matches. Zachary Meikle and Luke Groene in their final match together fell to Cam Metzger and Andre Adam, 8-3 in #2 doubles. Robert Albrecht and Dylan Conner also competed in their final career doubles match, going down to Georges Adam and Brandon Benedict, 8-0 in the #1 doubles match.
The Pioneers came close to grabbing a point in #3 doubles, but Joshua Buckman and Sam Hodgson fell short to Matt Conrad and Joe Kendall, losing 9-8 (7-4 tiebreak) in the pro-set.
Holding the upper hand as they moved into singles action, the Engineers grabbed the two more points they needed, as Benedict defeated Meikle in #2 singles, and Metzger won over Conner in the #3 singles final.
With all five matches in hand, Rose-Hulman took their second straight conference tournament crown. Sunday thus marked the end of a fine 2016 season for the Pioneers in which they finished tied for second place in the regular season conference standings, and made it back to the tournament championship match for the first time in two years.
The tournament also marked the final farewell for a collection of talented seniors for the Pioneers, including Meikle and Albrecht, who were each named to the HCAC All-Tournament team for their weeklong excellence. Other Transy seniors who completed their careers this weekend included Alex Arnett, Buckman, Conner, Eli Hack, Reza haider, and Chris Samaan.
The Pioneers finish off their season 8-7 overall, and 6-2 in HCAC regular season action, and 8-3 versus HCAC opponents in total. For Transylvania, the performance caps off their 10th top-three finish in conference in the last 11 years.
