MIDDLETOWN, CT. – The Wesleyan men's tennis team picked up a much-needed NESCAC victory Saturday, taking down conference opponent Hamilton at John Wood Memorial Tennis Courts, 6-3. The win ended a four-match losing streak for the Cardinals. Hamilton drops to 2-10 (2-6 NESCAC) with the loss. With the win, Wesleyan improves back to .500 overall at 7-7 (3-5 NESCAC).
Wesleyan was able to take an early lead in doubles, taking the first two matches of the day at #1 and #3 to jump out to an early 2-0 advantage. Hamilton closed doubles with a hard-fought victory to try to gain some momentum going into singles play. The Cardinals opened singles much like they did with doubles, with two dominating wins at #3 and #6 to take a 4-1 lead with only a few matches left. Hamilton fought back with wins at #1 and #5, but it wasn't enough as the Cardinals were able to claim their first victory in five matches.
In doubles,
Tai MacDonald '26 and
Max Lustgarten '25 combined to make quick work of Hamilton's Nicolas Gritz and Eric Stein, 8-1 to get the Cardinals on the board first. Another dominating doubles victory came from the duo of
JT Bilski '26 and
Ben Mitchell '24 who took care of business at #2, 8-2. Hamilton was able to salvage some momentum going into singles with a close victory at #2, as Anson Anderson and Gianni Esposito were able to take down Wesleyan's
Harry Collomb '26 and
Chase Kasday '26 8-5 and the two NESCAC schools moved into singles play with a score of 2-1 in favor of the Cards.
Singles play opened the same way doubles did, with the Cardinals taking the first two games followed by a Continentals win in the third game. It began with Collomb earning his first victory of the day at #3, defeating Hamilton's Coby Feldman behind an impressive 2
nd set (6-3, 6-0). Another decisive win came from Lustgarten at #6, taking care of Brian Chang (6-2, 6-1) to put Wesleyan up 4-1. The final four singles matches were highly competitive, all going to three sets. After Gritz was able to squeak by Kasday (7-6, 2-6, 6-3), Wesleyan put the game away with MacDonald's highly competitive victory over Stein (2-6, 6-3, 6-4) for the Cardinals 5
th win of the day. The Cardinals closed the afternoon taking one of the final two matches. Bilski was able to take down Anderson in three sets at #2 (5-7, 7-6, 6-2), before the Continentals claimed the final match of the day (#1 Connor Griff over Mitchell, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4) to reach the final score of 6-3.
The Cardinals will return to their home court April 16
th, where they will compete in their final home match against No. 21 Amherst.
