Kenosha, WI. -- The Panthers visited Kenosha, Wisconsin on Saturday to face the Carroll Pioneers and the Carthage Red Men. They began the day at noon with a routine win over Carroll, only dropping a combined three games through doubles play and two in singles.
The real excitement cranked up later in the afternoon against Carthage, as both teams came out of the gates loud and hungry for a win.
Daniel Gomez and
Brody Swan cruised at 3
rd doubles and the home crowd really started to quiet down with
Wyatt Dale and
Greg Sovie leading 6-5, where they got a break and Sovie held serve to put the Panthers up 2-0. Court two went down to the wire, but
Nat Kenworthy served well while trailing 6-7 to force a tiebreak. He and
Jules Kitchingman fell down 4-1 before coming back in a huge way, winning five straight points and converting their second match point to seal the doubles sweep.
Similarly to previous contests they ultimately lost, the Panthers were in a familiar spot after earning a doubles lead. Fortunately they didn't waste the chance at an important team win today, and Gomez put the boys one match away after grinding out a straight-set victory. In news that has flown under the radar, he earned the program's first individual ITA ranking in over 15 years on Thursday, coming in at #23 in the central region.
Before Carthage could get on the board, Sovie clinched the overall match on court three with a second-set tiebreak win. Kitchingman was unable to do enough with his opponent's big serve at 4
th singles, and Swan couldn't bounce back from a first-set tiebreak loss.
Kenworthy had a tough match where he fought hard, despite disagreeing with his opponent over several line calls. He couldn't pull off the win however, and lost to his opponent Krzewinski. Dale got the final victory of the day at number two, where he rebounded from down a set but activated sport mode and won the big points of his third-set tiebreak.
Box Score vs Carroll (winners in bold):
1
st doubles:
Wyatt Dale/Greg Sovie vs Chayce Roecker/Ian Foster 8-2
2
nd:
Jules Kitchingman/Nat Kenworthy vs Joe Harrison/Ryan Strupp 8-0
3
rd:
Daniel Gomez/Brody Swan vs Nick Bissegger/Jordan Nowell 8-1
1
st singles:
Gomez vs Foster 6-0, 6-0
2
nd:
Dale vs Bissregger 6-0, 6-0
3
rd:
Sovie vs Strupp 6-1, 6-0
4
th:
Kitchingman vs Nowell 6-0, 6-0
5
th:
Kenworthy vs Chris Jensen 6-1, 6-0
6
th:
Peter Griswold vs Carroll- default
Final score- Principia 9-0
vs Carthage:
1
st doubles:
Wyatt Dale/Greg Sovie vs Daniel Moore/Andre Antreassian 8-5
2
nd:
Jules Kitchingman/Nat Kenworthy vs Tripp Schulte/Matt Krzewinski 8-7 (5)
3
rd:
Daniel Gomez/Brody Swan vs Kevin Dunn/Fordy Leipold 8-1
1
st singles:
Gomez vs Moore 6-3, 6-3
2
nd:
Dale vs Schulte 6-7 (4), 6-2, 11-9
3
rd:
Sovie vs Antreassian 6-3, 7-6 (4)
4
th: Kitchingman vs
John Nykyforuk 7-6 (5), 6-4
5
th: Kenworthy vs
Krzewinski 6-2, 6-1
6
th: Swan vs
Dunn 7-6 (5), 6-2
Final score- Principia 6-3
