ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa.- The men's tennis team cruised to a key Landmark Conference victory over Elizabethtown on Sunday, beating the Blue Jays 8-1.
The Eagles started strong with a sweep of the doubles matches. Ilia Buralkin (Moscow, Russia) and Utsav Dhir Deravariya (India / Sunway University) teamed up to win first doubles 8-5, while William Michelson (Old Mystic, Conn. / Stonington) and Victor J.B. Jung (Normandy, France) won 8-4 at second doubles. Ezenna Emuka (Houston, Texas / William B. Travis) and Keisuke Maeda (Tokyo, Japan / Nihon University) were uncontested, taking a win by default at third doubles.
Buralkin continued his dominant senior campaign with a win at first singles, finishing 6-2, 6-0. Michelson took a win at second singles with a 6-0, 6-0 sweep. Emuka won a marathon match at fourth singles, losing 2-6 in the first set before winning 6-4 in the second set and hanging on to win 10-8 in the third set tiebreaker. Jung was victorious at fifth singles by a 7-5, 6-2 scoreline, while Maeda was uncontested at sixth singles for a win by default. Deravariya was the sole point dropped for the Eagles, at the third singles spot. After falling 1-6 in the first set, he battled hard to force the second set to a tiebreaker, but ultimately fell 65-77.
The team will finish out the regular season with two Landmark matches at home, hunting for a top 4 finish and a spot in the Landmark playoffs. They host Catholic on April 30th at 1:00 PM, before welcoming Scranton to town the next day for their season finale, starting at noon on May 1st.
