Men’s tennis wins against Charleston

Edinboro’s Vitor Albanese was the deciding factor in the men’s tennis team’s 5-4 win against the University of Charleston (West Virginia). 

Edinboro’s doubles play first secured a 2-1 lead with the top two teams winning. Albanese and Mateus Santos won 8-2 at the top spot, and the team of Daniel Fernandez and Kevin Mboko won 8-6 at the second spot. 

The third team, made up of Thomas McCoy and Christian Roettger, lost 8-6. Fernandez and Mboko were the last to finish, with both teams cheering their side as they completed the match. 

Head Men’s and Women’s Tennis Coach Kody Duncan stressed the importance of getting wins early in doubles. 

“A very important thing in college tennis is you play doubles first, so if you go out on a 3-0 lead, that puts a lot of pressure on the opposite team,” he said. “So that is what I want to continue to go forward. Continue to be strong in one, two and three doubles.”

Albanese’s win against the Golden Eagles’ Ben Lakeman may have been the deciding factor in the match, but much led to that exciting finish. 

Santos, Roettger and Mboko finished before the rest of their team with Mboko being the only win out of the three to tie the teams at 3-3. McCoy, Fernandez and Albanese continued to compete, with two out of the three needing to win for Edinboro to take the match.

McCoy was defeated by Charleston’s Jason Prince while Fernandez and Albanese were still playing, giving Charleston a 4-3 lead. When Fernandez won both of his sets to tie the match back up at 4-4, the fate of the team rested on Albanese’s shoulders.

Albanese finished off his tense set to the ecstatic yelling of each team when their own player scored. In the end, he pulled of his win to secure Edinboro’s team victory. 

“It was a very competitive match,” Duncan said. “It went down to the wire. Thankfully, we have two very important seniors [Fernandez and Albanese] that pulled out wins at one and two, and that definitely helped clinch the 5-4 win against this very, very competitive team.” 

Duncan said that the squad’s singles play needs improving as the season moves forward.

“[We] need to really focus on setting up the shots and winning the important points,” he said. “We do that in doubles, but we seem to not be doing that in singles as much.”

The Fighting Scots head off for their spring break road trip beginning on Saturday. 

Erica Burkholder can be reached at sports.spectator@gmail.com.

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