Box Score ELSAH, IL - The Principia Men's Tennis team opened SLIAC conference play on Tuesday against the Westminster Blue Jays. As this was the last home match of the season, Coach Rusty Jones and the team honored seniors Daniel Gomez and Elliott Matthiesen during an emotional ceremony in between the doubles and singles matches.
Gomez is one of the best men's tennis players ever to play at Principia College. He transferred in from Lewis & Clark Community College in 2018 with only two years of eligibility remaining, but due to the pandemic, he has been able to play three and a half seasons over four years at Principia. As the Panthers' number one player since day one, Gomez led the team to Nationals in 2019, as well as qualifying individually in 2021. He is likely to win his third straight SLIAC Player of the Year award later this spring, and he was ranked in the top 10 regionally and top 30 nationally at the end of last season. We thank Daniel for helping put Principia Men's Tennis on the map during his Panther career!
Matthiesen has been on the team for four years and is a beloved member of the Panthers, affectionately known as "Mom". He has played in the #5 spot this season and is a hard-working leader for his younger teammates. We thank Elliott for his great contributions to the Men's Tennis program during his time at Principia!
For Tuesday's match, Westminster College doesn't have enough tennis players to field a full team, so the Panthers ran out an all senior lineup with the Blue Jays only bringing two players. Gomez and Matthiesen paired up at #1 doubles for the first time in their careers and made quick work of the Blue Jays, rolling to an 8-0 win.
Gomez was just as dominant in singles, only dropping one game on his way to another win. After Matthiesen took a close first set 6-4, he was up 5-3 in the second, but his opponent fought back to force a third set tiebreak. Things were even at 2-2 when the Blue Jays' #2 went on a run to go up 8-4. Matthiesen battled to cut the lead to 8-7, but then a forehand passing shot from his opponent just grazed the back line to take back momentum, and Matthiesen would lose the match on the next point.
With the 8-1 team win, the Panthers run their conference winning streak to 29 matches, dating back to 2016.
Up Next: The Panthers will have a big test next Tuesday at 4 pm when they travel to Greenville University to face their biggest threat in the conference.
