Posted: Mar 17, 2018
BOISE, Idaho – Santa Clara men's tennis were edged out 4-3 to Boise State in a tightly contested match on Saturday afternoon at Boas Indoor Tennis Center.
Santa Clara (8-5) went up 3-2, after being down 2-0, on singles wins by Jesus Tapiador Barajas, Kamran Khan and Connor Garnett but could not close the deal, losing the last two singles matches.
Boise State (5-9) claimed the doubles point on wins by Stefan Lalovic and Pedro Platzeck over Vasileios Iliopoulos and Jesus Tapiador Barajas, 6-3, on court No. 2 and Kyle Butters and Jack Heslin bettering Andrew Gu and Robert Seby, 6-2, on court No. 1.
In singles play, Butter beat Seby 6-1, 6-2 to give Boise State a 2-0 advantage in the match.
Santa Clara then strung together three consecutive singles wins.
Tapiador Barajas got the first point for Santa Clara beating Matteo Tinelli 6-1, 6-3 in the third position. That was followed by Kamran Khan defeating Platzeck 6-4, 6-4 on court No. 6 to even the match at 2-2.
Connor Garnett put Santa Clara up 3-2 when he beat Mattia Bedolo in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.
Santa Clara had two opportunities to close the match but Iliopoulos fell to Wyatt Demulling 6-3, 6-4, evening the match at 3-3.
In the deciding match on court No. 1, Jack Heslin defeated Andrew Gu in three sets, 7-6(8), 3-6, 6-2 to clinch the overall win for Boise State.
Santa Clara, which lost both its weekend matches, will look to regroup at home when it takes on Pacific in the West Coast Conference opener at home on Saturday. First serve is at Noon PT.