Stags Earn 50th Straight SCIAC Victory

CMS Stags Tennis won its 50th consecutive SCIAC match on Saturday with a 9-0 victory against Caltech in Pasadena. The streak, which began in 2005, is now in its seventh season and includes five consecutive outright conference championships. On Saturday, three new Stags - freshmen Neel Kotrappa (La Verne, CA), Frank Liu (Upland, CA) and junior Andrew Duckworth (Lake Forest, IL) - earned their first singles and doubles wins to lead CMS to its first conference win of 2011.

With the threat of rain in the morning forecast, both teams agreed to play the singles first rather than the doubles. Junior Ethan Bond (Beverly Hills, CA) and Duckworth got the Stags out to an early 2-0 lead without dropping a game at the #5 and #3 singles positions respectively. CMS took the remaining four singles matches in convincing straight set wins to give the Stags a 6-0 lead heading into the doubles. CMS maintained the upper hand in doubles and registered its first sweep in the young season.

The Stags' afternoon match against Concordia was interrupted by rain with CMS leading 2-0. Robbie Erani (Jr. - New York, NY) and Ronald Wu (Sr. Capt - Los Altos, CA) were 8-2 winners at #1 doubles, while Russell Brockett (Sr. - Austin, TX) and Zhenya Pereverzin (Fr. - Clackamas, OR) paired for the first time to win 8-3 at #3. Alex Lane (So. - Claremont, CA) and Brandon Wei (Jr. - Lake Oswego, OR) led 6-5 with Wei serving before the match was halted. The teams will resume #2 doubles and the six singles on Monday at 3:30 PM at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.

#3 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (9) vs. California Institute of Technology (0)
February 19, 2011 at Pasadena, CA (Caltech Courts)

Doubles
1. Neel Kotrappa / Frank Liu (CMS) def. Devashish Joshi / Luka Mernik (Caltech) 8-4
2. Ethan Bond / Max Mullen (CMS) def. Anish Agarwal / Wesley Yu (Caltech) 8-3
3. Andrew Duckworth / Ernie Hayhurst (CMS) def. Karthik Narsimhan / Ben Lieber (Caltech) 8-0

Singles
1. Neel Kotrappa (CMS) def. Devashish Joshi (Caltech) 6-1, 6-2
2. Frank Liu (CMS) def. Luka Mernik (Caltech) 6-3, 6-2
3. Andrew Duckworth (CMS) def. Anish Agarwal (Caltech) 6-0, 6-0
4. Ernie Hayhurst (CMS) def. Ben Lieber (Caltech) 6-2, 6-0
5. Ethan Bond (CMS) def. Wesley Yu (Caltech) 6-0, 6-0
6. Max Mullen (CMS) def. Anuj Arora (Caltech) 6-1, 6-2

Order of completion
Doubles: 3, 1, 2
Singles: 5, 3, 4, 6, 1, 2