Men's Tennis Breaks Williams' 53-Match NESCAC Win Streak

Author: David Lindholm

Nine years ago, the Amherst College men's tennis team beat to their closest rival, Williams, 5-4. After that loss, the Ephs set off on a 53-match New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) winning streak that continued from 1994 until last Wednesday, when they traveled to Nelson Arena to face the Middlebury Panthers.
The match started at 4:30 on Wednesday, and the Panthers immediately took the lead by winning two of the three doubles matches to take the 1-0 lead over the Ephs. Then the top four players in the ladder took the court, starting with Justin Ingoglia '05 at number one, and the Panthers' trio of star first-years; Nate Edmunds, Brian Waldron, and Ari Beilin at numbers two through four.
Ingoglia dropped the first set 6-4 against his opponent, who was playing a tough, high-pressure net game. Also in the first set, Ingoglia strained his hamstring, and "for the first time this year I started doubting my ability to win," he said. "but then Dave [Schwarz, Head Coach] said to me, 'everyone's match is close. I need you to win.' From that point on I tried hitting bigger serves and bigger shots from the ground so I wouldn't have to move as much, and it worked. I took the next two sets, 6-4, 6-4."
The next match to finish was Edmunds', who won 6-4, 6-4 despite having to battle against his own legs which were cramping up in the third. While the first two matches were going on, Waldron was battling at the number three spot, and after narrowly winning the first set in a tiebreak and losing the second, the first-year clinched the Panthers' victory with a 6-4 win in the third. According to Ingoglia, "it was the most exciting moment of the season," and the first time the tennis team had topped Williams in at least 33 years.
Though the Panthers had already clinched the victory, the tension in Nelson was still palpable as every remaining match was hard-fought. Beilin won 6-7, 6-4, 6-3, and then co-captain Steve Hulce took his by a score of 6-3, 6-4 to put the Panthers up by a score of 6-0. The final match to end was sophomore Andrew Jacobi's, who dropped the second set after a heartbreaking tiebreak loss in the first.
The 6-1 victory was "a big win for our confidence," said Edmunds. "I think we all knew we could beat them but to win by such a decisive score felt great."
"I knew that we had a great team and definitely had the capability to beat Williams," Waldron said. "Putting it all together and performing in front of a home crowd was an experience that I will never forget."
Next up for the Panthers was a road match against Bowdoin. In the fall rankings, Williams was ranked first, the Polar Bears sixth, and the Panthers 12th, so all the players knew that complacency would be deadly against Bowdoin.
"Our match against Bowdoin was personal," noted Ingoglia. "They ended our season last year when they beat us at home in the regional tournament, and denied us a spot at nationals in Santa Cruz. We really wanted to beat them for that reason."
The first-years again came through for the Panthers, who each won at their two through four spots, and with all three doubles teams winning, Middlebury took the match by the narrowest of margins, a 4-3 score. "It was close, but we did it," said Ingoglia.
With the win, the Panthers now have the inside track at the top seed for the NESCAC tournament that Middlebury will host from April 25-27.
"In all honesty I think the Bowdoin victory was even bigger for us than Williams," said Waldron. "It would have been really easy to have a let down after such a big win, but we came out fired up from the beginning of the match."
Sunday's match against Bates was almost an afterthought, since the team was flying so high after the two huge wins.
"We came out knowing if we set the tone early it would be a quick day," Edmunds said. "We did, and it was."
The Panthers blanked the Bobcats 7-0, which left the three first-years each with 3-0 records for the week. The tennis team now has only Amherst and Trinity left before the NESCAC Championships. The Panthers is quick, however, not to assume anything about the rest of the season.
"Right now we're more focused on improving and staying focused than thinking about long term result-oriented goals," Edmunds commented later. "I think if we get too far ahead of ourselves it could hurt us, so I think it's best to just work on our games in practice and, as coach always says, let it happen in matches."