OSHKOSH, Wis. – Mauricio Gonzalez (Fy./La Paz, Bolivia/American Cooperative School) won the day’s final match 6-3, 6-2 to lift the Carleton College men’s tennis team to a 5-4 victory over host University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. The Knights, ranked No. 10 in the central region, improve to 2-0 on the young season.
"Witnessing Mauricio's combination of speed, power, and finesse is akin to marveling at a duck play the trombone," said Carleton head coach Stephan Zweifel.
The Titans grabbed the early lead by winning two of the three doubles matches, but Carleton responded by posting victories at the top three spots in the singles lineup. Austin Jiang (Jr./Green Bay, Wis./Bay Port) and Avery Rux (Fy./Austin, TX/Home School) were the Knights’ lone victorious tandem, winning 8-4 at second doubles.
Andrew Hwang (Fy./Brookfield, Wis./University School) prevailed 6-2, 6-4 at first singles. Meanwhile Dan Vollman (Sr./Oak Park, Ill./Oak Park River Forest) and Matthew Ta (Fy./Mission Viejo, Calif./Capistrano Valley) had a slightly tougher time, but the pair notched wins by scores of 6-1, 7-5 and 6-2, 7-6 at second and third singles, respectively.
Oshkosh picked up the win at fourth singles, and Ben Huang (Fy./Sammamish, Wash./Skyline) dropped the sixth singles match in a super-tiebreaker by a 2-6, 6-1, 12-10 score. That left it up to Gonzalez to record the decisive point.
"Since many of the guys are lactose intolerant, they were nervous about traveling to Wisconsin,” noted Zweifel. “But they overcame their enzymatic challenges to pull out an exciting win."
The Knights continue their tour of America’s Dairyland when then play University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Sunday. The match has a 10 a.m. start time.
