Dowling Box Score (April 15)
Dist. of Columbia Box Score (April 16)
The Queens College men's tennis team, ranked No. 26 in the Campbell's/ITA Division II Poll, clinched the East Coast Conference regular-season title with dual-match victories at Dowling College, Friday night by a 9-0 count, and versus the University of the District of Columbia by an 8-1 decision Saturday morning.
Against Dowling, eight Knights took part in the victory, including the doubles tandems of Atilla Toth and Nikolaj Wulff (8-3 over Victor Kim and Eduardo Ribeiro), Fabio Minami and Andre Pellegrino (8-1 over Michael Sinclair and Sardorja Mamajodnov) and Jesse Smith and Robby Scheuing (8-0 over Dylan Zagal and Adam Kliti).
In singles action, QC swept through all six matches – including a 6-4, 7-5 triumph by 29th-ranked Toth over Kim at No. 1 singles. Medrano pushed past Ribeiro by a 6-3, 6-1 decision, while Minami took it to Mamajodnov by a 7-5, 6-3 count. Pellegrino downed Sinclair at the No. 4 flight, 6-0 and 6-1, while Scheuing (over Justin Skidmore) and Taylor Crabill (over Kevin Lotito) both won by 6-1, 6-love scores at No. 5 and 6, respectively.
Saturday morning before rain hit the tri-state area, the Knights took home the battle of conference unbeatens against the Firebirds. Toth and Wulff took down Tomas Gajdusek and Bruno Reich by an 8-4 count, Minami and Pellegrino downed Carlos Quiroga and Miguel Uzcategui, 8-2, and Medrano and David Burstein slid past Lalindra Jayatilleke and Karlon Bernard, 8-3.
Toth played an epic match against Gajdusek, and pulled out a third-set tiebreaker to earn the victory (6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (11-9) ). Reich picked up UDC's lone win against Wulff 6-3, 6-3 in the No. 2 flight, before Medrano (6-3, 7-5 over Uzcategui) and Minami (6-1, 6-2 over Quiroga) won at No. 3 and 4 for QC, respectively. Burstein swept Bernard by identical 6-love scores, before Pellegrino defeated Javatilleke, 6-0 and 6-1.
Head coach Craig Schwartz's Knights now have two strong tune-ups before the ECC Championships start Tuesday, as Queens faces off against Division I St. John's, Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. (in Bronxville, N.Y.), before squaring off Monday at home against third-ranked Concordia at 2:30 p.m.
