April 23, 2008

MEN’S TENNIS: Lutes Lose to Whitman in Conference Title Match

THIS WEEKEND: Pacific Lutheran will send four players to the Ojai Valley Tournament in Ojai, Calif., scheduled for Friday through Sunday, April 25-27.

LUTES’ NWC TITLE RUN ENDS: A year ago, Whitman entered the Northwest Conference men's tennis tournament with an unblemished conference record, and then dropped the title match to Pacific Lutheran, 6-3. The scenario was the same this year as the Missionaries came into the NWC tournament with the No. 1 seed based on a 16-0 conference record. This time, however, they left no doubt as to their supremacy in the Northwest Conference, whipping the Lutes, 8-1, in the tournament championship match held last Saturday afternoon at Yakima Tennis Club. The conference title was Whitman’s first since 2004 and ended a string of three straight NWC crowns for the Lutes. Whitman had defeated the Lutes twice during the season, 6-3 in early February and 9-0 in early March. The NWC title match was more of the same as the Missionaries took two of three doubles matches before blitzing the Lutes in a convincing singles sweep. The Lutes salvaged a doubles point at No. 2 where Justin Peterson and Michael Manser knocked off Nadeem Kassam and Jake Cappel, 8-5. That was to be the only points that PLU would muster, however, as Whitman cruised in singles.

NO NCAA TOURNAMENT FOR PLU: PLU’s loss to Whitman at the conference tournament, coupled with the Lutes’ relatively low regional ranking, effectively means that the Lutes won’t participate in this season’s NCAA tournament. As winners of the past three Northwest Conference tournaments, the Lutes had qualified for three consecutive NCAA postseason events. PLU lost 4-0 to Trinity (Texas) in both 2005 and 2006 and to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in 2007.

LUTES TO OJAI: The premier NCAA Division III tournament on the west coast is the Ojai Valley Tournament, and four Lutes will participate in the annual event starting with singles matches on Friday morning. Kevin Floyd and Justin Larimore have both received a No. 9 seed designation, meaning they are considered to be among a group of eight players who figure somewhere in the No. 9 through No. 16 spots. Both players open their singles play at 8 a.m. Friday, Larimore taking on Ben Hough from Claremont-Mudd Scripps and Floyd meeting Daniel Ikuta from Occidental. Justin Peterson and Michael Manser are also entered in the tournament and play Friday, Peterson against Mike Reading from Redlands at 9 a.m. and Manser against Michael Starr from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at 10 a.m. Floyd and Larimore are the No. 5 seed in doubles and kick off that portion of their play at 3 p.m. Friday against Kian Fattahi and Colin Mark-Griffin from UC Santa Cruz. Peterson and Manser have drawn Jeff Hammond and Kevin Wong from Redlands at 3:30 p.m. Friday in their first doubles match.

AN OJAI FIRST: David Miller and Justin Larimore earned All-America recognition after winning last year’s Division III men's doubles title at the prestigious Ojai Tournament. Miller and Larimore, who were then Pacific Lutheran's top doubles duo and the tournament's No. 8 seed, defeated No. 5 seed Max Liberty-Point and Brian Pybas from UC Santa Cruz, 6-3, 6-4, in the title match. Miller and Larimore became the first-ever Pacific Lutheran singles player or doubles team to reach an Ojai Tournament final.

- PLU -