ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 16 Wesleyan men's tennis team continued to roll, landing a pair of key wins on Tuesday to up their win streak to four straight matches. The Cardinals (4-1) took down No. 15 Southwestern 6-3 in the morning and followed with a 9-0 triumph over Franklin & Marshall in the afternoon.
No. 16 Wesleyan 6, No. 15 Southwestern 3
The Cardinals jumped out to an early lead, taking two of the three doubles matches with wins coming at #1 and #3.
JT Bilski '26 and
Ben Mitchell '24 held off Oscar Roy and Ashton Ellis with an 8-6 win at #1 while
Max Lustgarten '25 and
Tai MacDonald '26 dominated at #3, defeating Anton Borovik and Steven Tibbetts 8-3.
Wesleyan quickly moved one point away from securing the match as Bilski ran away with a 6-3, 6-0 win at #1 over Bernado Clemente. Lustgarten then picked up his second win of the day, defeating Ryan Flanagan 6-2, 6-0 at #5 to make it 4-1 Cardinals in team scoring.
Needing just one more match victory, all four remaining singles matches went into a third set to determine a winner. The Pirates managed a win at #2 before MacDonald sealed the match with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Ellis at #4.
Harry Collomb '26 was next to finish as he also came back from one set down, defeating Tibbetts 5-7, 6-3, 6-2.
No. 16 Wesleyan 9, Franklin & Marshall 0
In one of the more competitive matches that resulted in a 9-0 score, the Cardinals prevailed in every match, despite three singles matches going to a third set tiebreak while two of the three doubles matches were decided by three points or less.
Wesleyan swept the doubles portion, with Lustgarten and MacDonald posting their second 8-3 win of the day at #3. Bilski and Mitchell pulled out a 8-5 win at #1 while Collomb and Chase Kaday '26 fought off Gonzalo Gentou and Pedro Norte at #2 in a 8-6 victory.
Singles play was split between three competitive matches and three matches the Cardinals dominated.
Harry Portnoy '24 won easily at #6, defeating Anthony Casale 6-3, 6-1 while Bilski recorded a 6-2, 6-3 win at #1 and Mitchell won 6-4, 6-0 at #2. The three remaining singles matches all went to a third set, but all three were won by the Cardinals.
Collomb, Kasday, and MacDonald all prevailed despite dropping the first set on all three courts. Collomb triumphed 4-6, 6-1, 10-6 at #3 while Kasday won 2-6, 6-3, 10-8 at #5. Looking for the 9-0 sweep in the team score, MacDonald prevailed in an epic match at #4 against Luke Brodsky, winning 5-7, 7-5, 10-4.
The Cardinals are right back in action on Wednesday morning, with a meeting against No. 23 Kenyon at 11 AM from the USTA National Campus in Orlando.
