Victory at No. 5 Singles Completes Rally by Knights
ASTON, Pa. — For only the second time all season, Goucher came out of doubles play with a lead today. Thanks to wins by David Spivey (Cockeysville, Md./The Park School) and Nick Pelensky (Billings, Mont./Billings) at No. 1 and Thomas Adair (Dunkirk, Md./Northern) and Seth Manfield (Bethesda, Md./Emerson Prep) at No. 3, the Gophers, who were facing Neumann, entered the singles competition ahead 2-1.
Adair, Manfield Fight Off Three Match Points at No. 3 Doubles
ASTON, Pa. — For only the second time all season, Goucher came out of doubles play with a lead today. Thanks to wins by David Spivey (Cockeysville, Md./The Park School) and Nick Pelensky (Billings, Mont./Billings) at No. 1 and Thomas Adair (Dunkirk, Md./Northern) and Seth Manfield (Bethesda, Md./Emerson Prep) at No. 3, the Gophers, who were facing Neumann, entered the singles competition ahead 2-1.
Unfortunately, the Knights prevailed in four of the six singles matches and pulled off a 5-4 come-from-behind victory over head coach Michael Vann's squad.
Spivey and Pelesnky provided the Gophers with a 1-0 advantage with their 8-3 triumph over Dustin Broom and Bryan Bodine. The next match to finish was No. 2 where Zane Buckley and Todd Del Sordo defeated Pat Murnin (Salt Lake City, Utah/East) and Brett Blackman (Philadelphia, Pa./J.R. Masterman), 8-5, evening the overall match at 1-1.
Adair and Manfield staged an astounding rally at No. 3 to put Goucher back in front, 2-1. They were down 8-7 to Joshua McMillon and Andrew Raimundo and trailed love-40, but fought off triple match point to come back and post a 9-8 (5) victory.
The Knights (4-6) turned the 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead by winning the first three singles matches to finish: Buckley topped Murnin 6-1, 6-2 at No. 3, Bodine polished off Pelensky 6-2, 6-3 at No. 2 and Del Sordo earned a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Manfield at No. 4.
After Spivey, who was playing at No. 1, kept the Gophers (2-18) in the match by pinning a 6-3, 6-1 setback on Broom, Adair pulled out a 6-4, 6-4 win over Raimundo at No. 6 to even the overall match at 4-4.
Even though he dropped the first set at No. 5, Blackman battled back to take a 5-2 lead in the second set, but wasn't able to close out his opponent and force a third set. Instead, McMillon won the final five games to come out on top 6-2, 7-5.