FREMONT, Neb. – The Concordia men’s tennis team’s season ended on Friday morning. In the first round of the GPAC tournament, the Bulldogs were topped by Midland, 5-4 in a close, down-to-the-wire match. The last four singles matches to be played all went into a third set.
Concordia ends the season 7-12 overall. Midland moves to 15-10 and will move onto the GPAC semifinal match.
Head coach Joel Reckewey said, “The men had a very tough and heart breaking loss in the first round of the tournament. We unfortunately got ourselves down in the doubles but fought back in the singles matches. We put ourselves in a position to win every match. We needed to step up and a couple guys did. I thought we played well, we are a talented team, we just didn’t get it done today.”
The No. 1 doubles team was the only duo for Concordia to grab a victory. Willy Pardos and Javier Moreno took the match 8-2.
Pardos finished his singles match first at the No. 1 position with a 6-2, 6-2 victory to even the match at two all. Patricio Esquivel was defeated 6-3, 6-1 as Midland pulled back ahead by one point. The remaining four singles matches went in to a third set. Thomas Greef (6-2, 6-7, 7-6) and Gabriel Poling (6-2, 4-6, 6-3) both won their singles matches. The four victories were just one short from clinching the win and moving on to the next round of the tournament.
Concordia wraps up the season with a singles record of 47-67 and a doubles mark of 19-35. The Bulldogs will not graduate any student-athletes and will be expected to come back strong next season.