Ripon College Days

Media Credit: Photo by Craig Sauer Ace. The men's tennis team will face Grinnel Friday. [Click to enlarge]

The rout of Carroll College Saturday, April 9 led the Red Hawks to their eighth consecutive match win. The Red Hawks now improve to 12-4 on the season with a convincing 7-0 victory over Carroll.

"We're really starting to click," says junior Paul VandenBoogaard. "The younger guys are starting to play up to their potential."

Against Carroll, Ripon won all six of the singles plus all three doubles matches as well. VandenBoogaard and first year Dave Czarnecki won the first doubles match 8-0 at the number one spot. At the number three spot sophomore Ben Metzler and junior Alex Wente won their doubles match with an identical score of 8-0.

First year students Ryan Manis and Ben Sweeney teamed up at the number two spot and came out victorious, 8-5 over Carroll's Nick Kavelaris and Matt Morzy.

The day's singles matches did not prove much more difficult.

VandenBoogaard won his match in straight sets at the number one spot while Czarnecki beat Craig Mours 6-2, 6-1 at the number two positions.

Metzler and Wente, who are also doubles partners, won at the number four and five positions with the same scores of 6-1, 6-0. At the number six position senior Paul Larson beat Kaveh Barissi, 6-0, 6-0.

Although all signs were pointing toward a sweep, the match set at the number three position between Sweeney and Kavelaris was the most competitive of the day.

After Sweeney lost the first set 6-4, it looked as if the sweep was going to be broken up, but Sweeney rallied to win the next set 6-1. Sweeney capped off the comeback by holding off the Kavelaris run and winning the tiebreaker, 10-8.

The Ripon netters will be back in action Friday when they visit Grinnell College

"That will be a big test," says VandenBoogaard. "They are the team to beat in the conference and the one that we are gunning for. It will be good to get out there and see how we match up."

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