CMS Men's Tennis Shuts Out Pomona-Pitzer for 15th Straight SCIAC Title

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's team clicked in doubles to take a 3-0 lead and captured a 5-0 win over Pomona-Pitzer in the championship match of the SCIAC Postseason Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.

With the win, CMS improves to 25-6 on the year and captures its 15th SCIAC Championship in a row, a streak which stretched from 2006-19, took a two year hiatus due the pandemic, and continues on this season. The Stags have not lost a single SCIAC-sponsored match in that time, a stretch of 144 wins in a row (138 regular season and six SCIAC Postseason Tournament wins). Redlands had a streak of 143 straight regular season wins from 1963-76, which the Stags snapped in the 1976 regular season finale. 

CMS did some script flipping to take a 3-0 lead after doubles. Yesterday in the semifinals, Robert Liu and Ian Freer never got on track in an 8-0 loss at No. 2 doubles against Occidental, before the Stags moved on to win easily 5-1. Today, though, the duo did the exact opposite and rolled to an 8-0 win to give CMS a 1-0 lead. 

In the regular season meeting with Pomona-Pitzer meanwhile, Philip Martin (playing with Nathan Arimilli at the time) dropped a tiebreaker at No. 1 doubles. This time, Martin and Matthew Robinson prevailed in a tiebreaker to finish off the 3-0 sweep, after Arimilli and Jack Katzman added an 8-3 win at No. 3 doubles. 

With a 3-0 lead in hand, singles was largely anticlimactic as CMS jumped out to big leads on a few courts and it was just a race to see who would earn the clinch. Martin gave CMS a 4-0 lead with a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 2, and Christopher Li capped off a dominant effort at No. 5 for a 6-0, 6-0 win - his 23rd of the season -  to secure the clinch with the fifth point. Michael Hao was also close to a win at No. 6 (6-3, 5-2), while Robinson was in a tight second set, but was up a set 6-2, 4-4. 

CMS will now advance to the NCAA Regionals, and it will find out its opponent and location when the field is announced on Monday. The Stags will be trying to win their third national championship in program history, after finishing as the runner-up in 2019, the last time they competed. 

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (5) vs. Pomona-Pitzer (0)
May 7, 2022 at Claremont, CA. (Biszantz Family Tennis Center) - SCIAC Postseason Tournament Championship

Doubles
1. Philip Martin/Matthew Robinson (CMS) def. Jansen Comadena/Owen Kelley (PP) 8-7(3)
2. Ian Freer/Robert Liu (CMS) def. Charlie Stark/Hayden Snyder (PP) 8-0
3. Nathan Arimilli/Jack Katzman (CMS) def. Nils Skattum/Mukund Madabhushi (PP) 8-3

Singles
1. Robert Liu (CMS) vs. Hayden Snyder (PP) 4-6, 4-1, unfinished
2. Philip Martin (CMS) def. Charlie Stark (PP) 6-3, 6-2
3. Matthew Robinson (CMS) vs. Kush Patel (PP) 6-2, 4-4, unfinished
4. Jack Katzman (CMS) vs. Mukund Madabhushi (PP) 4-6, 0-3, unfinished
5. Christopher Li (CMS) def. Jansen Comadena (PP) 6-0, 6-0
6. Michael Hao (CMS) vs. Jack Weiler (PP) 6-2, 5-2, unfinished

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