Heading into the final two weeks of conference play before the G-MAC Tournament, the Hillsdale College men's tennis team got a stiff non-conference test on Tuesday afternoon, hosting the 14th-ranked team in the nation, Wayne State, in a match played indoors in the Biermann Center.
Hillsdale fell 7-0 to the defending NCAA DII runners-up, but although the Chargers didn't get a point, Hillsdale was competitive in several spots with one of the top teams in the Midwest Region.
Wayne State started the match by pulling out an incredibly close and contentious doubles point. Hillsdale's No. 3 doubles pairing of freshman Aidan Pack and junior Daniel Gilbert won the Chargers' only match on the court, taking a thrilling 13-11 tiebreaker after both teams deadlocked at six games apiece. The Chargers put up a good fight at the other two doubles positions, but junior Brennan Cimpeanu and senior Brian Hackman fell 6-3 to the third-ranked doubles pairing in the nation, Wayne State's Daniel Grey and Cedric Drenth, at No. 1 doubles, and the Chargers' No. 2 pairing of senior Tyler Conrad and junior Sean Barstow dropped a tight 7-5 match to the Warriors' No. 2 doubles pairing.
Hillsdale was unable to take a singles match from the Warriors, but the Chargers put up a good fight in several of the matches. At No. 1 singles, Cimpeanu took Wayne St.'s Daniel Grey to three sets, falling 2-6, 6-3, 3-6 in a tight match, and at No. 2 singles, Conrad nearly took a set off of the Warriors' Cedric Drenth, the ITA's 24th-ranked singles player in NCAA Division II, falling 6-1, 7-6 (1).
Hackman also pushed Wayne State's Dom Spicer, the ITA's 42nd-ranked singles player at the NCAA DII level to the limit, forcing a third set before falling 3-6, 6-3, 4-6.
Hillsdale is now 10-6 overall heading into a critical G-MAC weekend with two matches against two other close contenders for a top four seed at the season-ending G-MAC Tournament, Cedarville and Ashland, at home. Hillsdale opens with the Yellow Jackets at 2 p.m. on Friday, then plays the Eagles at noon on Saturday.
Photo by Isabella Sheehan