Redlands Men’s Tennis Upsets No. 24 Pomona-Pitzer 5-4

Image Credit: Kylie Calabrese-Kenny
Image Credit: Kylie Calabrese-Kenny
Posted: Apr 08, 2023

CLAREMONT, Calif. – The University of Redlands Men's Tennis team picked up a huge upset win Saturday morning on the road edging No. 24 Pomona-Pitzer 5-4. 

The Bulldogs end their two match-losing skid and improve to 8-7, 3-2 SCIAC.  The win marks the first time the Maroon and Grey have beaten the Sagehens since the 2017 season when they beat PP twice (5-4 Regular Season & 5-3 SCIAC Championships).

Redlands jumped out in front quickly taking a 2-1 advantage after doubles before splitting singles action with two matches going the distance and both going the way of the Bulldogs.

The Sagehens picked up the first point at No. 3 doubles as Luke Watson (Cambridge, England) and Omar Khayat (Irvine, CA) would get blanked 8-0.  Nils Plutat (Sauerlach, Bavaria, Germany) and Bryce Keim (Spartanburg, S.C.) would level the match at 1-1 with a decisive 8-5 win at the top spot and they were followed by Jack Mattox (Mercer Island, WA) and Stefan Hester (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) at No. 2 who would pull out an 8-5 win as well giving UR a slight advantage.        

In singles PP would grab a point at No. 1 as Plutat would fall 6-2, 7-6 and that was followed by Keim getting broken once in each set at No. 2 6-4, 6-4.  The Sagehens would take a lead behind a win at No. 6 as Josh Davydov (Bellevue, WA) would drop a tight 6-4, 7-6 match.  But the next three points would go to the Bulldogs.  Donovan Lilov (San Diego, CA) would win convincingly at No. 5 6-4, 6-2 pulling UR within one at 4-3.  It then came down to the two three set matches.  Mattox would open things up with a 6-3 win in the first set.  His opponent Matthew Feng would level the match with a 6-3 win in the second, but the third would go to Mattox rolling 6-0 leveling the overall score, 4-4. 

The last match on was Hester at No. 2 and what a match he played grabbing one of his biggest wins of his career grinding from a set down to pick up the clinch for Redlands winning 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 over Kush Patel.   

Redlands looks to carry this momentum into a match-up with Chapman University this Friday, April 14 beginning at 3:00pm inside the Verdieck Tennis Center.