Principia Defends SLIAC Title
TOURNAMENT HIGHLIGHT VIDEO
PHOTO GALLERY
BOX SCORE
The Principia college men's tennis team defended their St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title with a 5-3 win over Greenville College in the 2015 championship match. The tournament title is the program's 13th, marking the conference record for tournament titles.
Principia rolled through the tournament's first day of action, sweeping Webster University 5-0 in the second round after securing a first round bye. The Panthers were set to face the only conference team this season they dropped sets to, Greenville College, in the 2015 SLIAC Championship Match.
Principia took early control in the championship match by winning two of three doubles matches. The #1 team of Nate Waters and Joey Sander won 8-1 while the #3 team of Jason Wissman and Daniel Drake won 8-3. The #3 doubles team of Code Power and Justin McDonald gave Greenville their first score of the day, winning 8-6.
The singles action was tight all day long with Greenville winning at the #5 and #6 spots. Justin McDonald took #6 singles 6-0, 6-2 to even the dual match score. Principia did not waver despite the pressure and recorded wins at #2 singles and #4 singles. Sander won at #2 singles 6-1, 6-2 and Drake out lasted Demetrius Bush at #4 singles 6-1, 6-2 to put Principia within one singles victory of a tournament title.
Greenville's Alex Dowley powered his way to a 6-1, 6-2 win at #5 singles to bring the team scores to 4-3 with two singles matches still in play. The match winning point came in the #3 singles match between Principia's Nate Waters and Greenville's Code Power. Waters took the opening set of the match 6-2 and led late in the second set. It was a race between Waters and Wissman as to who would record the tournament's final point, with Wissman leading his match 6-2, 5-3. Waters ended up tallying the winning point after coming from behind 15-40 to force deuce and eventually winning on a shot by Power that carried long.
