PHILADELPHIA — Trailing 3-2 in the fifth-place match of the ECAC Championship against Dartmouth, William & Mary turned to its veteran leadership to bring home a victory.
Graduate students Alexandre Leblanc and Konstantinos Raptis won three-set matches at No. 1 and No. 3 to push the Tribe past the Big Green, 4-3, on Sunday afternoon at the Hecht Tennis Center.
W&M (4-4) won the doubles point for the second time in as many days before winning at the top three singles positions to win its second-straight match and finish fifth at the ECAC Championship. Along with Leblanc and Raptis’s wins, fellow graduate student Satchel Benn won at No. 2.
How It Happened
- After a Dartmouth (6-3) win at No. 3 doubles, the Green and Gold answered with victories at the top two positions to secure the initial point of the match.
- Benn and freshman Oliver Hague won their third in a row, downing Hikaru Takeda and Carlos Guerrero Alvarez, 6-3, on line two. The Tribe pair improved to 8-5 on the year.
- Graduate student Bill Duo and Raptis clinched the doubles point for the second consecutive match. The Tribe tandem topped Henry Ren and Alex Knox-Jones, 6-4, at No. 1. Duo and Raptis upped their mark to 5-2 at the top spot.
- Benn won in straight sets at No. 2 to extend the Tribe lead to 2-0. He defeated Ren, 6-3, 6-3, for his 11th win of the season. Benn also improved to 3-1 at No. 2.
- Dartmouth countered with wins at No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 to take a 3-2 lead.
- After splitting the opening two sets by matching 6-4 scores with Dartmouth’s Hikaru Takeda, Raptis pulled his squad even by taking the third set, 6-2. It was his third-straight win and ninth overall on the season.
- The team result came down to the top spot. Leblanc jumped out to a set advantage over Carlos Guerrero Alvarez, before the Dartmouth junior answered with a 6-3 win in the second. Leblanc clinched the Tribe victory by outlasting his counterpart, 6-4, in the decisive third set. He improved to 12-5 on the year and 4-3 at No. 1.
Up Next
The Tribe and Big Green will meet for the second-straight week when Dartmouth travels to Williamsburg for an 11 a.m. match on Saturday, Feb. 24, at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center.
William & Mary 4, Dartmouth 3
Singles
No. 1 – Alexandre Leblanc (W&M) def. Carlos Guerrero Alvarez (Dartmouth) – 6-4, 3-6, 6-4
No. 2 – Satchel Benn (W&M) def. Henry Ren (Dartmouth) – 6-3, 6-3
No. 3 – Konstantinos Raptis (W&M) def. Hikaru Takeda (Dartmouth) – 6-4, 4-6, 6-2
No. 4 – Miles Groom (Dartmouth) def. Oliver Hague (W&M) – 7-5, 6-2
No. 5 – Albert Hansen (W&M) def. Logan Chang (Dartmouth) – 6-4, 6-4
No. 6 – Alex Knox-Jones (Dartmouth) def. Alexander Karman (W&M) – 5-7, 6-1, 6-2
Finishing Order: 2, 4, 5, 6, 3, 1*
Doubles
No. 1 – Duo/Raptis (W&M) def. Ren/Knox-Jones (Dartmouth) – 6-4
No. 2 – Benn/Hague (W&M) def. Takeda/Guerrero (Dartmouth) – 6-3
No. 3 – Qadir/Groom (Dartmouth) def. Leblanc/Karman (W&M) – 6-2
Finishing Order: 3, 2, 1*w7M
