Box Score O'FALLON, Ill. | St. Clair Tennis Center - No.19 McKendree University men's tennis began its 2023 spring with a strong showing in its first match, defeating Saint Mary at home, 6-1 on Friday night. The Bearcats went 2-0 in true doubles matchups while going 4-0 in true singles matches. McKendree gets back on the courts on February 17 and 18 with Kaskaski coming to town for an exhibiton and faces off against William Woods the following night.
McKendree dominated out of the gate with a 6-1 victory behind the doubles pairing of No.39 senior
Leonardo Frederico and freshman
Benedek Szombathelyi. The Frederico/Szombathelyi doubles pairing, who are both individually ranked in the region, handled the Fox/Anderson-Conlon team to start the year. Following up Frederico/Szombathelyi was the freshman doubles team of
Tomas Leston and
Jose Antonio Velasco, who shut-out their opponent, 6-0, clinching the doubles slate victory. Leston/Velasco took out the Saint Mary pair of Contrucci/Crumpacker for their win.
In the singles slate, the Bearcats dropped the #1 singles matchup as Velasco fell to Fox, 7
7-6
4 / 6-2. McKendree followed-up with four-straight commanding wins as senior
Ryan Fung dealt out a 6-1 / 6-0 victory. Fung beat out Anderson-Conlon to take the Bearcats' first singles match.
After Fung kicked things off on the singles end for McKendree, the Bearcats tacked three more wins on as freshman
Ian Ramiro Perez Rodriguez, sophomore
Charlie Sanzo, and senior
Carlos Etty, all captured their matchups in a similar fashion as Fung. Perez Rodriguez went 6-1 / 6-0 over Contrucci while Sanzo and Etty both earned 6-0 / 6-0 wins against their opponents in Crumpacker and Zimmerman.
BOX VERSUS SAINT MARY
#1 Doubles
#2 Doubles
#3 Doubles
#1 Singles
#2 Singles
| Score |
Matchup |
| 1 |
1 |
A. Anderson-Conlon |
| 6 |
6 |
Ryan Fung |
#3 Singles
#4 Singles
#5 Singles
#6 Singles
Head Coach Rene Vidal on the spring-opening victory
"I am really proud of our freshmen Bene, Jordi, Toño, Ramiro, and Aimar for notching their first-ever dual match wins as Bearcats. The positive energy and intensity of the whole team was a great way to start the season."
Senior Team Captain Leonardo Frederico on the victory
"I'm very proud of everyone. We did a great job tonight, and are excited for the next match. The energy was amazing on and off the court. Let's keep it up. Step by step and match by match!"
UP NEXT
No.19 McKendree men's tennis will be back in action during an exhibition on February 17 at home against Kaskaskia before hosting William Woods in a regular season event on February 18 at St. Clair Tennis Center.
