GCU Concludes Competition in Pacific Mountain Invitational

Sunday, March 1

Stockton, CA

10 a.m.

Grand Canyon

Hawai'i

Adrian Legarreta

Photo by: Darryl Webb

GCU Concludes Competition in Pacific Mountain Invitational

3/1/2015 1:51:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Fall 4-2 Against Hawai'i in Stockton, Calif.

The Grand Canyon University men's tennis team (3-6) were defeated by Hawai'i (4-6) at the Hal Nelson Tennis Courts in Stockton, Calif. It was the third and final match of the Pacific Mountain Invitational hosted by Pacific. The Lopes came up short 4-2.

"The guys had their closest match of the trip against the University of Hawai'i this morning," said head coach Greg Prudhomme. "They did great, as they have been doing all season, and they seem to be getting a little bit better each match."

The team opened the day by winning the doubles point. Adrian Legarreta and Philip Kuehnen won the first flight's match 6-4. On court two, Felix Schueller and Alexander Roggenkamp claimed a 6-3 victory.

Meidy Chazeau and Gregoire Balenci were competing in the third flight with the score tied 4-4 when the Lopes claimed the doubles point, leaving their match unfinished.

"They started off with getting that doubles point which they hadn't done in the two matches here Friday, so they did a good job bouncing back from those losses and then it just turned into a fight in the singles," explained Prudhomme.

In singles, Legarreta earned the second point for Grand Canyon with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Carter Lam.

"We were able to win in straight sets with Adrian at court three," Prudhomme continued. "The other team, unfortunately, was able to keep the early momentum that they got after winning the first sets on four of the other courts and they were able to close the deal."

Schueller faced Nils Schuhmann in the first flight, winning the first set in a tiebreaker and earning a lead in the second before the Rainbow Warriors captured the win.

"Because we were playing the clench format in tournament play, we weren't able to finish the last match where Felix was up a set and at 2-0, 40-0 in the second set," explained Prudhomme. "There was a good chance that that was going to stay in our favor and would have been a one point loss 3-4 so to battle close like that with a good team in Hawai'i that bodes well for us moving forward."

"We have to keep training hard when we get home and get ready to turn some of these close matches into wins," Prudhomme concluded. "We're hoping to do that next weekend in California."

GCU will face UC Riverside on March 7 at 2 p.m. in Riverside, Calif., and they will take on UC Irvine on March 8 at 11 a.m. A full recap of the events will be available on www.gculopes.com.

Hawai'i 4, Grand Canyon 2