For the second weekend in a row, the Binghamton men’s tennis team went on the road and came back without a victory.
Despite the losses ‘ a 7-0 defeat at the hands of Columbia on Friday and a 4-3 loss to St. John’s on Saturday ‘ the team is not despairing, because just like last weekend, the losses are coming against better teams in stronger conferences.
‘Even though we are losing matches, we’re losing to quality teams,’ said junior captain Faisal Mohamed. ‘The past seasons we had a much softer schedule, which looked great on paper but didn’t really help us.’
On Friday, BU (1-4) lost all three doubles matches and all six singles matches, and junior Jon Bonnet was the only Bearcat to manage to win a set, despite losing at five singles, 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 (10-7).
Binghamton fared better the following day at St. John’s. After losing the doubles point, the Bearcats won three of the six singles matches. Junior captain Faisal Mohamed improved to 13-6 this season, winning 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 at first singles. Junior Alex Dobrin won at four singles, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, and junior Mark Piro returned to action after spending a semester abroad, winning at six singles, 6-5, 7-6.
The Bearcats had a chance to pick up the doubles point after Mohamed and Dobrin won at first doubles, 8-6, and Bonnet and Pierre Clavel lost 8-0 at second doubles. But Moshe Levy and Piro could not pick up the win, as they lost in a close match, 9-8 (7-2).
‘Against Columbia, we should have done a lot better than what we did. We came out flat and lacked energy,’ Mohamed said. ‘But against St. John’s everyone gave it their all, and it was just unfortunate that we came up short.’
Binghamton will be on the road again this weekend, facing off against Concordia on Friday and Marist on Saturday. The Bearcats beat both those teams last season, 4-3 and 5-3, respectively.
‘It would be great to win all the time, but playing tough competition like we are is making all of us stronger and tougher,’ Mohamed added.