This past weekend the men’s team traveled to Middlebury for the Middlebury Invitational, marking the start of the 2009-2010 season. This tournament was a great chance for the young players to get some experience as well as prepare the Cats for the ITA Regional Championship this coming weekend at Williams. We had a solid showing for our first matches of the season, with the highlight being Amrit and new partner, first-year Matt Bettles, winning the A flight doubles title. Along the way to winning the championship, Rupa and Bettles beat two Middlebury teams and the #1 team from Trinity. By beating the team of McCook and Feldman from Trinity, Amrit was able to avenge his loss to Feldman in the quarterfinals of the singles. It was also a gratifying win for Bettles since he lost in a super-breaker to McCook in his first collegiate match.
Max Berger had the best singles showing, making the semifinals of the B flight, losing a tough battle on Sunday to Derick Angle from Middlebury. Max teamed with Mike Reiss to get a solid win over a good Bowdoin team of Davis and Won, 9-7, before losing to McCook and Feldman in the next round.
In the C flight, both Ryan Mannelly and Jeff Beaton had good first round wins before losing to Middlebury opponents in the quarters. They then paired up to play doubles, beating Post and Albano from Colby, 8-4. Again it would be Middlebury that would get in the way, as they fell to Lunghino and Farah 8-3 in the quarterfinals. Bettles wasn’t the only freshman to get his first college match under his belt, Kyle DeSisto from Cohasset, MA, played in the B flight doubles with sophomore Sawyer Lawson. Unfortunately, the two couldn’t get into the win column, but the experience is what was important for the weekend. All in all, the Cats had a good showing and it should be good preparation when we head to Williams for the ITA New England Championships on September 25-27. We had several parents cheering us on at Middlebury, which is always appreciated. We hope to see more of you throughout the fall and into the spring. Remember, Parents Weekend is October 2-4 here at Bates and it would be great to see many of you up on campus that weekend.
