Posted: Feb 08, 2019
LOGAN, Utah – Santa Clara men's tennis fell 5-2 to Utah State in a tightly contested nonconference match on Friday at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club. The Aggie won all three matches that went the three-set distance.
Santa Clara (4-2) and Utah State split the first two doubles matches. Felipe Acosta and Isaac Arturo Arevalo beat Vasileios Iliopoulos and Arthur Neuhaus, 6-4, on court two but Andrew Gu and Jesus Tapiador Barajas evened things with a win over Rithvik Bollipalli and Sergiu Bucur, 7-5, on court one.
The Aggies (5-3) took the doubles point when Duro Opacic and Daniel Bushamuka edged Connor Garnett and Robert Seby, 7-6 (8-6), on court three.
The tight matches continued into singles play.
While Arturo Arevalo put the Aggies up, 2-0, when he beat Tapiador Barajas, 6-3, 6-3, on court one, the Broncos looked to turn the momentum of the match sending a pair of matches to three-sets.
However, the Broncos came up on the short end of both as Gu lost to Bucur, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 on court two and Garnett fell to Acosta, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, on court three for the match clincher.
Santa Clara picked up its two points from Iliopoulos on court four who defeated Opacic in straight sets, 6-4, 1-0 (10-6), and Seby over Mitch Johnson, 6-3, 6-4, on court six.
Neuhaus dropped a three-setter to Bollipalli, 2-6, 6-1, 1-0 (10-8), on court five.
The Broncos return to action on Saturday to take on BYU in the West Coast Conference opener. The first serve from Provo, Utah, is at 4 p.m. PT.
