Box Scores
The Prairie Fire shut out one opponent then got shutout in the team's first two matches of the season last Saturday in Dubuque, Iowa.
Knox blanked Edgewood College of Madison, Wisconsin 9-0 in the season-opener for both squads. The match was historic for Edgewood, which is fielding a men's tennis team for the first time in a decade.
Everything worked well for the Prairie Fire against Edgewood. Junior Erik Hane (Littleton, Colorado) cruised in his #1 singles contest against John D'Orazio 6-0, 6-0. Sophomore Shaun Mulani (Bourbonnais, Illinois) had little trouble in his #2 match-up against Edgewood's Cody Strebig, winning 6-4 and 6-0.
Sophomore David Ham (Lakewood, Washington) won the closest singles (#3) match of the day for the Prairie Fire, claiming a 6-4, 2-6, 10-4 victory against Edgewood's Max Divelbiss.
The other singles winners for Knox were sophomore Kenton Tilford (Rochester, Illinois) over Tim Morgan 6-0, 6-4 in the #4 match, first-year Max Gatyas (Plymouth, Wisconsin) against Clint Reed 6-1, 6-0 in the #5 match-up and first-year Andrei Tapancea (Romania) over Vince Jankiewicz 6-0, 6-0 in the #6 competition.
The #1 Knox doubles team of Hane and Mulani defeated D'Orazio and Morgan of Edgewood 8-1. The #2 team of Ham and Tilford won over Strebig and Divelbiss 8-4 and the #3 duo of Gatyas and Tapancea downed Reed and Jankiewicz 8-2 to complete the shutout victory for the Prairie Fire.
The results weren't as favorable for Knox against the highly regarded University of Dubuque.
Nick Garcia shut out Hane in the #1 singles match 6-0, 6-0. Mulani lost to Claudio Giraldi 6-0, 6-2 in their #2 singles showdown. Ham fell 7-5, 6-2 to Demetrius Johnson in the #3 singles match, Tilford put up a good fight against Dubuque's Chris Matteson in the #4 match-up, but came up a little short -- 6-1, 4-6, 10-8. Shawn Iben defeated Gatyas 6-1, 6-1 in the #5 singles match and Tapancea suffered his first loss of the season at #6, falling 6-2, 6-2 against Michael Braden.
Dubuque's #1 doubles team of Garcia and Iben defeated Hane and Mulani 8-4, Giraldi and Braden stopped Ham and Tilford in the #2 match 8-1 and the team of Matteson and Johnson handed Gatyas and first-year player Caleb Thompson (Galesburg, Illinois) an 8-4 setback.
The Prairie Fire heads to Elsah, Illinois to take part in the Principia Invite Friday and Saturday.
