MCMINNVILLE, Ore. –
Cameron Paulsen posted his first 2-0 day of the season with a straight-sets win at No. 3 singles and his first doubles win with partner
Matous Young but the Linfield men's tennis team fell 6-1 at home Saturday at the hands of the Pacific Boxers.
For a second straight match the Wildcats found themselves just a couple of games away in each of the top two flights from stealing the day's doubles point and saw admirable efforts at the top of the singles lineup but Pacific handled matches at the bottom of the ladder to win the day.
The Boxers moved to 3-2 on the season, all against Northwest Conference opponents, while Linfield fell to 1-6 overall and 1-5 in league play.
DOUBLES
After being within three games of victory in three of their prior four matches, Paulsen and Young finally broke through Saturday for their first win as a duo. Linfield's No. 3 team took the contest 6-4 over Pacific's Aidan Rooney and Alexander Kinoshita.
The win was Young's 10
th in doubles in his time at Linfield.
At No. 1 doubles
Brooks Lerfald and
Rogue Stone found themselves in an impressive battle with Pacific's top team of Dawson Hose and Jonathan Nguyen but ended up on the wrong end of a 7-5 score for the second straight match.
It was a similar story at No. 2 doubles for
Abhi Acharya and
Alexander Rosenquist, who fell to Ryley Chang and Joshua Dela Cruz 6-4.
SINGLES
Paulsen's win at No. 3 was one of the most impressive individual performances of his sophomore season, handling Nguyen 6-1, 6-3. It was Paulsen's second singles win of the year and the seventh of his career.
Despite dropping the doubles point Linfield was squarely in the match in singles play thanks to the efforts of Lerfald and Stone at the top of the ladder but both eventually fell in three sets.
In the top flight Lerfald managed to force a third set after dropping the first but in the end lost to Dela Cruz 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. Stone also had a bounce-back set in the second but was outlasted by Kinoshita 6-4, 2-6, 6-1.
At No. 4 singles Rooney topped Rosenquist 6-3, 6-1 while Acharya gave Hose a strong challenge in the first set of the No. 5 match but the Boxer eventually closed out the second without much tension, winning 7-5, 6-2, and at No. 6 Chang beat
Cody Pickar 6-0, 6-1.
NEXT
Saturday's match marked Linfield's final contest in McMinnville until April 5. The Wildcats head down to Salem, Ore. tomorrow morning to face the Willamette Bearcats (0-6, 0-2) before visiting cross-county rival George Fox on Sunday, March 15.
The Wildcats then take a break from NWC action to play four matches in California over Linfield's spring break.
Linfield plays at home again when the 'Cats host Whitworth and Whitman the first weekend of April.
