GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Trine University men's tennis team secured at least a share of the 2024 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) Men's Tennis Regular Season Championship by defeating Calvin University in a thrilling 5-4 dual match.
The Thunder built a commanding lead during the doubles portion of the contest, winning all three matches. Cole Goodman and Drew Dixon earned the first win of the day in the No. 2 match, defeating the Knights 8-2. Caleb Morris and Nicholas Jen went on to take the No. 3 match with a score of 8-4 and Sammy Yin and Andrew Spirrison finished off the first half of the day with an 8-5 victory.
Calvin roared back in during the singles port of the dual, winning the top four matches. Both Yin in the No. 1 match and Spirrison in the No. 3 match won their first sets but fell to comebacks by the home players.
Dixon earned the first singles win of the day in the No. 6 match, cruising to a score of 6-1, 6-3 and tying the team score at four.
That left the No. 5 match as the deciding point. Morris took the opening set 6-3 before falling in a 7-2 tiebreaker in the second set. The junior went down 4-1 in the third set and then battled through three match points with the score at 5-4 to force another tiebreaker. He went down 3-0 in that final tiebreaker before pushing through for the 10-8 win. His final scores where 6-3, 6-7 (2-7), 7-6 (10-8).
With the win the team improves to 14-3 overall and 6-0 in MIAA play. Calvin falls to 5-1 and Kalamazoo College sits at 4-1 entering the day with their match against Hope College ongoing. The Thunder will travel to face the Hornets on Tuesday, April 23 for their final match of the regular season. With a win they would secure the championship outright, a loss could mean as much as a three-way tie atop the standings.