BRYN MAWR, Pa.—Freshman
Ryan Nguyen (Oakton, Va.) won five straight games in the second set to clinch the match as Villanova (5-5) won its second straight and evened its record on the season with a 4-3 victory over La Salle (1-4) at the Bryn Mawr Racquet Club on Sunday afternoon. The bottom half of the Wildcats lineup turned the tables in the match after the visiting Explorers won the doubles point and took two of the first three singles matches.
"La Salle is a very hungry and dangerous team," Villanova head coach
Brad Adams said. "We gave them a lot of hope to pull off a win after our doubles performance, but I was happy to see that most of our guys were able to pick up their energy in singles and battle from behind to get the team victory."
It took four straight singles victories for the Wildcats to secure the win against an Explorers team they had beaten 6-1 exactly two weeks earlier. Freshman
Josh Robinson (Potomac, Md.) scored the first Villanova point of the day with a three-set win in the No. 2 singles spot. He defeated La Salle senior Connor Merrill in a 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-2 decision. The final match of the day to conclude was the No. 6 singles match between Nguyen and Brandon Caban, which Nguyen won in a 6-2, 7-5 result. He trailed the second set 5-2 before rallying to win the next five games.
"I give a lot of credit to Josh to be able to shut the door on his opponent after a frustrating tiebreaker in the second set," Adams said. "The same goes for Ryan who rattled off five straight games in his second set to clinch the match for the team."
The other wins for the Wildcats came from sophomore
Daniel Cheng (Los Angeles, Calif.) and freshman
Anthony Prokurat (Manalapan, N.J.) in the No. 4 and No. 5 singles matches. Cheng defeated Colin Lucius in a 6-4, 6-1 victory and Prokurat was a 6-2, 6-3 winner against Dylan Tull. The team score was tied at 3-3 after their respective wins.
La Salle began the day by winning the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles matches to claim the first team point. Robinson teamed with junior
Matthew Jones (Dallas, Texas) in the No. 2 doubles match to defeat Lucis and Nassim Fenjiro, 6-1. In the other matches, senior
Daniel Martinez (Coral Gables, Fla.) and sophomore
Alex Kim (Cary, N.C.) lost to Rogelio Gonzalez and Merrill (6-2) while freshmen
Eitan Khromchenko (Manalapan, N.J.) and
Noah Winton (Columbia, Mo.) were defeated (6-3) by Caban and Tull.
Gonzalez defeated Kim at No. 1 singles in a 6-3, 6-4 match and Khromchenko fell by set scores of 6-2 and 6-3 to Fenjiro in the No. 3 singles match.
Villanova returns to action against Drexel on Wednesday at 1 p.m.
