By Miles Montgomery
The Colorado College men’s tennis team traveled to Hastings, Neb. two weekends ago to take on McPherson College and host Hastings College. Though the Tigers fell to McPherson by a score of 6-1 on Saturday, they rebounded on Sunday to defeat Hastings by a score of 5-2 to record their first win of the season, bringing their overall record on the year to 1-7.
Sam Hum ’21 was the standout performer of the weekend. Hum recorded the Tigers’ only win against McPherson, and won three of his four matches on the weekend, including a doubles win alongside Noah Forman ’20 and a singles win against Hastings’ Nico Wahl.
However, the Tigers were able to take positives from the defeat against McPherson. “We lost to McPherson 2-5, and I took a singles win along with Sam Hum,” Alex Wimer ’22 said. “Personally, it was a good match to find my groove for the new season and put to work some of the principles we had been working on in practice. McPherson was a fairly evenly matched team with us, so despite the score I think we could have taken the win.”
“We played McPherson College first and I think changing from altitude to sea level definitely played a role,” Jacob Adas ’22 said. “Both me and Noah Forman had close matches losing our first sets in singles in a tiebreak.”
Despite the setback of the Saturday loss, the Tigers were able to rebound strongly on Sunday against Hastings. “We won against Hastings 5-2. That was an easier set of matches by far, but it certainly was a morale booster for the team going into the spring season,” said Wimer. “With six new freshmen on the team and only five of us returners, it was definitely reassuring to see that the freshmen could stick with it and get some wins.”
The Tigers’ next set of matches will take place March 13-15 over spring break in Orlando. They will play three matches in three days against Brevard College, the University of Scranton, and Bethel College, a prospect the Tigers are certainly relishing.
“It should be interesting going into our matches over spring break to see how we can adjust and potentially improve on our weaknesses. As someone from Colorado, the transition from altitude to sea level is always frustrating,” added Wimer.
The team is planning to build off of the positive momentum from winning in Nebraska. Adas’ tone is confident when he previews the upcoming spring break trip, promising Tiger fans some wins in the process.
“We’re definitely looking forward to our spring break trip and playing Brevard and Scranton. We have a whole block of only training and preparing for this trip, so I think we’ll be ready for whatever is thrown our way,” Adas said. “Our lineups are also not set yet for the trip, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. I would say we’re stronger than last year and we’re looking forward to competing and picking up some dubs in Florida for sure.”