Weston, Mass.--- The Regis College men’s tennis team hosted Eastern Nazarene College and Wentworth Institute of Technology Saturday (Oct. 2) for the first annual Regis Fall Invitational Tournament. “It was a huge success.” Stated the Pride’s head coach John Ciarleglio. “The weather was beautiful and we saw some great tennis.” The event was held as part of Regis College’s homecoming activities and included three flights of doubles, three flights of singles and a consolation round for singles.
The Eastern Nazarene Lions took home the team award as they won one doubles flight and two singles flights. The Wentworth Leopards came in second with three wins overall – two doubles flights and one singles flight. The Leopards Juan Rodriguez (Quito, Ecuador/Colegio Americano de Quito) beat the Lions Austin Steelman (Darlington, MD. /Tome School) to take the first singles group. The third singles group winner was the Lions Eric Johnson (Kingston, Mass. / Silver Lake Regional) who defeated the Leopards Nathan Dube (Wakefield, R.I./Prout School). The Lions dominated the second singles group as Brandon Lum (Great Neck, NY. /Great Neck) and Tim Luz (Cumberland, RI. /Cumberland) finished as finalists for group two.
It was a tough day for the freshman laden Pride, but they competed in a number of intense matches. Freshman starters, Andy White (Bozeman, /Mont.), Jonathan Chen (Malden, /Mass.) and Jon Dost (Taunton, /Mass) played very well in their intercollegiate tennis debut. Sophomore captain Matt Smolko (Pelham, NH. /Lowell Catholic) showed significant improvement over last year as he lost an extremely close match against the Leopards Tim Nguyen (Windsor, Conn. /Windsor), 8 – 6 in a first round match.
“I was very pleased with the effort put out by all my players. We are still building the men’s tennis program and the recruits that arrived at Regis this fall have significantly improved the overall competiveness of the team.” Stated head coach Ciarleglio. The Pride completes its fall schedule with matches against New England College Friday (Oct. 8) and Endicott College Saturday (Oct.16).