Posted: Feb 11, 2018
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Down three match points in doubles play, the duo of Vasileios Iliopoulos and Jesus Tapiador Barajas roared back to win the doubles point, propelling the Santa Clara men's tennis to a 6-1 win over New Mexico on Sunday at Degheri Tennis Center.
"It was a fantastic team win today. To win against a team like New Mexico, who played a top-20 team in Texas Tech and lost 4-3 and beat Pacific on Friday, 4-1, shows the capabilities of this team. Getting that doubles point in the fashion we did shows the difference from last year to this year in both the way we construct our points and also the way we finish believing and trusting our shots," said Broncos head coach Niall Angus.
With the Broncos (5-2) and the Lobos (4-3) each winning a doubles game, it came down to a battle between Iliopoulos and Barajas against Jorge Escutia and Michael Tran on court two with the Bronco duo prevailing 7-6 (7-3) to clinch the doubles point.
Riding the momentum, Santa Clara won each of the first five singles matches. Andrew Gu playing in the first position and Connor Garnett playing in the fourth position, remained undefeated in singles play on the season, each improving to 5-0.
"In singles, we did a phenomenal job riding out the storm as New Mexico came out with a ton of energy and we survived that. After that we really put our foot on the pedal and imposed our game style on them," said Angus.
Gu's win over Bart Van Leijsen, 7-5, 6-1 clinched the win for the Broncos.
Santa Clara next plays at UC Davis on Sunday, February 18 at 1 p.m. PT.
