Ten members of the No. 17 University of Redlands men's tennis team competed in the 115th Ojai Tournament over the weekend, earning various individual results in singles and doubles.
Highlighting the event for the Bulldogs, senior Patrick Lipscomb (Irvine, CA) advanced to the semifinals in singles during a stellar outing in his fourth Ojai Tournament with the Maroon and Gray. After an opening-round bye, he took down Kalvan Chadalavada from Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, 6-1, 6-0, to move onto the quarterfinals. There, he faced Joe Dorn of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges and prevailed in an up-and-down three-setter, 6-0, 3-6, 6-2. In addition, Lipscomb cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 win over Daniel Morkovine of CMS in the next round, before falling in an extended semifinal match, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4, to Skyler Butts, who also plays for CMS.
Additional singles highlights include senior Nick Cummins' (Rancho Mirage, CA) epic, nearly-four-hour battle against CMS' Max Macey in the Round of 32. Although he lost, the scores show the incredible competitiveness of the memorable match: 7-6(6), 6-7(5), 6-4.
In doubles, seniors Gram Leahy (Portland, OR) and Ted Burchett (Gold River, CA) represented Redlands well with their semifinal appearance. Following a first-round bye, the duo recorded an 8-6 victory over Derek Levchenko and Chad Stone of UC Santa Cruz, before taking down Glenn Hull and Nikolas Marino of CMS by a score of 8-6 to earn a spot in the semifinals. Unfortunately, the veterans' luck ran out there, as they lost, 8-5, to the top-seeded pair of Dorn and Warren Wood of CMS.
Cummins and Lipscomb also performed well in doubles, as they made it to the quarterfinals with an 8-5 victory over another CMS tandem, Bryan Mehall and Lester Yeh.
Redlands now looks forward to competing at the 2015 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship Tournament, which takes place at Caltech on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2. The Bulldogs, who are seeded second, face seventh-seeded Occidental College in the first round at 10 a.m.
