HOUSTON – Playing without three senior starters in the lineup, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's tennis team dropped its Sunday contest to no. 37 ranked Rice on the road, 4-0, in the final match of the Texas Tamale Company Rice Invitational.
The Islanders (11-7, 1-0 SLC) saw six freshmen gain valuable experience in doubles and singles play. Rookie phenom
William Mottet was up a set in every match this weekend when play was halted, including Sunday's tilt with David Warren at number three.
The Owls (19-5, 3-0 C-USA) picked up an early point in doubles. The Islanders' all-freshman pairing of
Cagatay Soke and
Lukas Buth at number two fell to Jake Hansen and David Warren, 6-3, before Daniel Warren and Henrik Munch bested the Blue and Green's young team of
Carlos Pedrosa Cuevas and
Chad Nguyen by the same score.
Teamed with the lone veteran in the lineup, Mottet and his partner
Kevin Bettendroffer battled Tommy Bennett and Emanuel Llamas to 5-4 at number one before the contest was halted.
In the singles portion, Eric Rutledge edged Pedrosa Cuevas 6-4, 6-2, in the fourth spot to make it 2-0 in favor of the hosts. Freshman
Daniel Kellenbenz shook off a slow first set to push Munch to the brink second set at number six, but dropped the matchup 6-2, 7-5. The Owls closed out the match with a fifth-spot win by Llamas over
Gonzalo Achondo. The Chilean international forced Llamas to a third set after his win second-set victory with the final score of 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
Corpus Christi gave Rice all it could handle in the unfinished matches. At the suspension of play, Mottet was rallying for to win a point for the Blue and Green after he opened the match with a 7-5 win and finished down 5-2 in the second, while Soke was tied with Hansen in the two hole after going 7-5, 2-6 in the opening sets.
Bettendroffer and Bennet had a showdown brewing at number one. The French international was up after taking the opening set in a tiebreak 15-13.
"I'm so proud of how hard this team competed and the way they bonded together," Director of Tennis
Steve Moore said. "We won the first set at 1,2 and 3 singles against an excellent team that's been top -25 in the nation this year.
"It would have been so easy playing the third match in two days to reach for excuses and instead this team competed at the best level I've seen all year. I'm very proud of the character, senior leadership and very excited about the last quarter of this season."
The Islanders Tennis program will compete against UTSA on Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center, before traveling to New Orleans for an 11 a.m. showdown in the Southland Conference on Sunday.
