After dedicating them to Mary Jane Delp, the Hillsdale College men’s tennis team played on its new courts this past weekend.
“We had a great ceremony,” head coach Keith Turner said. “Mr. Delp and Dr. Arnn had some nice speeches that got us fired up and ready to play, and it reminded them of why they’re at Hillsdale. It’s a very nice facility and we’re happy to have it. It was nice to have the weather we did as well.”
After losses against both Walsh and Tiffin over the weekend, the Chargers have been mathematically eliminated from qualifying for the GLIAC Tournament. Both matches had intense competition.
Falling 5-4 to Walsh on Saturday, No. 1 doubles partners freshman Justin Hyman and sophomore Dugan Delp took an 8-4 win. Jerry Hewitt and Zach Rabitoy also won 8-6 in No. 3 doubles.
“Saturday came down to me,” said sophomore Dugan Delp, who lost 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. “I ended up losing in the third set.
We were neck and neck, he picked up his game and took out all his weapons. I got tight and played more conservatively.”
Turner said competition was close and the team had a chance in both matches.
“It was tight. Both weekend matches were really close,” he said. “We could have easily won both matches, but both teams were a little bit better than us. It’s encouraging that we’re so good as such a young team.”
Sunday afternoon, the No. 1 doubles team took another win at 8-5, as did No. 2 doubles partners John Ciraci and Gianpiero Placidi with an 8-4 victory.
“This weekend we played pretty well all over in doubles and coming into the season I thought doubles was going to be our biggest weakness,” Turner said. “But we’re just not there singles wise. We’re honestly just one to two more players away from winning 2-3 more matches. We’ll be better in the future, but this is all was good learning experience, and it’s good to know that we’re this good this young.”
In singles, No. 1 Justin Hyman and No. 4 John Ciraci took home wins against Walsh, and Delp took the only win in singles against Tiffin.
“Our top two guys were the strongest,” Turner said. “They won three out of four matches over the weekend. To do that in the top two spots in GLIAC is impressive.”
The last match of the season is this weekend at Findlay.
“Findlay’s in the same situation we are,” Delp said. “They’re not going to GLIACs. We’ve been traveling to the same matches, so they’ve been playing the same teams we have with very similar results. We’d love to end the season with a victory, especially at Findlay. It’d be great to finish strong to get good momentum into the offseason and to next fall.”
