Princeton University
Penn
Players Mentioned
Men's Tennis Earns First ECAC Finals Berth Since 2008, Tops Penn
February 13, 2016 | Men's Tennis
For the first time since 2008, the Princeton men's tennis team will play for the ECAC Championship.
Third-seeded Princeton knocked off seventh seed and host Penn 4-3 a day after the Quakers knocked off second-seeded Dartmouth by the same score. An upset racked the other side of the bracket as well, as fourth-seeded Cornell knocked off top-seeded Harvard to earn a finals berth.
It'll be Princeton's 11th ECAC final with the first 10 coming between 1996 and 2008. Princeton has won one ECAC title, in 2001.
Princeton began the match against Penn with a pair of doubles wins to secure the first point of the afternoon, and the Tigers were up 3-1 after Kial Kaiser and Luke Gamble won the first two singles matches to be decided.
Penn then grabbed wins on courts two and four to tie the match before Alex Day, who with Gamble were the only Tigers to win in both doubles and singles, clinched the finals berth with his win on court three.
The finals battle with Cornell will start at noon Sunday at Penn.
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(45) Princeton (7-2) vs. Penn (3-5) Feb. 13, 2016 • Philadelphia, Pa. |
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Doubles
| 1 | Day/Gamble (P) | DNF | Austin Kaplan/Westergaard (Pe) | 4-4 |
| 2 | Vives/Jimmy Wasserman (P) | |
De Alwis/Nardella (Pe) | 6-3 |
| 3 | Colautti/Yablon (P) | |
Dmitry Shatalin/Thomas Spratt (Pe) | 6-4 |
Singles
| 1 | Diego Vives (Pr) | |
Kyle Mautner (Pe) | 6-2, 6-1 |
| 2 | Tom Colautti (Pr) | |
Vim De Alwis (Pe) | 6-3, 7-6 |
| 3 | (123) Alex Day (Pr) | |
Josh Pompan (Pe) | 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 |
| 4 | Josh Yablon (Pr) | |
Matt Nardella (Pe) | 7-6, 6-4 |
| 5 | Kial Kaiser (Pr) | |
Nicholai Westergaard (Pe) | 6-1, 6-4 |
| 6 | Luke Gamble (Pr) | |
Blaine Willenborg (Pe) | 6-2, 6-3 |
| Match notes: Princeton has won the last two in the series against Penn ... this was the teams' first meeting in ECAC Championship play since 2004, a Penn win; Princeton won the previous ECAC meeting between the teams in 1999. |
| Order of finish: Doubles: 2,3; Singles: 1,5,6,4,2,3 |
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Coach Billy Pate on the match: "We had another good performance in doubles today and certainly needed that point as Penn really made a push and had us on our heels in singles. Fortunately, we had another strong effort from Kial (Kaiser) and Luke (Gamble), allowing Alex (Day) to clinch the match. I'm proud that Alex made adjustments to get his match to a third set. He was really clutch down the stretch against a very tough opponent. We'll have another challenge tomorrow against Cornell as they had a very impressive win against Harvard today." |