Along with Josh Patterson winning All-American in wrestling and the Binghamton University men’s basketball team making its first NCAA appearance, the historic week for Binghamton athletics was highlighted by the men’s tennis team.
The Bearcats (10-3) have now won five straight matches after posting consecutive 6-1 wins against UMBC on Saturday and at George Washington on Sunday. The current win streak is the longest since the 2005-06 season, when the team went on to win six in a row.
Saturday’s 6-1 victory over last year’s America East runner-up UMBC was the fourth in a row for the Bearcats, whose impressive win streak has included notable play from all members of the team.
“It was a good performance in singles, from No. 1 to No. 6,” said Binghamton head coach Adam Cohen, according to a Binghamton University press release.
The game between Binghamton and UMBC was a rematch of last year’s America East title match. The Retrievers are now 5-4 under first-year head coach Rob Hubbard.
Outstanding freshman Gilbert Wong has been a strong force, and improved his record with an impressive win at fourth singles over UMBC’s Allen Tsang, 6-2, 6-0. Along with Wong, sophomore Sven Vloedgraven improved his record on the season to 10-2 in duals after picking up a straight-set win at second singles.
Saturday’s victories included wins at all six singles positions. The team’s only losses came at doubles, where UMBC’s Nick Savage-Pollock and Fredi Voorman combined to defeat Moshe Levy and Arnav Jain, 8-2. Chris Meyer and Logan Bricker (UMBC) defeated Wong and Vloedgraven, 8-4. Voornan was last week’s America East Male Performer of the Week.
On Sunday the Bearcats headed to Baltimore to take on the Colonials, with their four-game win streak on the line. In convincing fashion, the Bearcats downed George Washington, 6-1, taking five of the six singles matches.
Making a rare appearance at first singles, Vloedgraven defeated George Washington’s top singles player Yan Levinski, 6-0, 6-4, to improve to 20-7 on the season. Vloedgraven’s victory snapped a four-match win streak for Levinski. The move was done to “change things up … so other teams can’t prepare for just that one lineup,” according to Cohen.
Levy, Binghamton’s usual No. 1, picked up his second singles victory of the weekend, defeating Ugur Atalay, 7-6, 6-4. Levy is now 19-11 for the season. And with victories coming at singles and doubles on Sunday, Wong improved his already impressive season mark to 26-6.
Chris Kushma was the only George Washington player to pick up a win at singles, and by defeating Rafael Rodrigues, he extended his individual win streak to three matches.
“Binghamton is playing at top-60 level,” said Colonials head coach Greg Munoz according to a George Washington University press release. “The doubles point played a huge role in momentum and we couldn’t squeeze it out … we weren’t out-matched; we were out-played. We hope to be at that level by next year.”
This Saturday the Bearcats will head to Old Dominion University in Virginia to take on the 15-10 Monarchs.