On Wednesday March 20th the Stags were able to sweep cross-town rival Sacred Heart University winning 4-0 for their third straight victory which gave them a record of 6-8. This started with Sam Hodges ’25 and graduate student Thomas Smart losing 6-1 in the
number one doubles match. Following the loss both the number two and number three doubles team won their matches for the Stags with graduate student Nick Condos and Will O’Brien ‘25 winning 7-5 and Luca Benaibbouche ‘27 and Kostas Kollias ‘26 winning 6-1 which gave the Stags the doubles point.
The six singles matches saw Fairfield winning three of them and the other three not finishing due to inclement weather and the fact that their outcomes had no bearing on the outcome of the match overall. Graduate student Griffin Schlesinger won both his sets 6-1, followed by Hodges who won 6-2 and 6-0 and Kollias winning his sets 6-4 and 6-2.
At the time of the inclement weather Smart was entering his third game after winning the first and dropping the second. Condos was entering his fourth set after a tightly contested third and Keean Shah ‘24 was entering his third set after winning the first two.
The Stags next match was to open conference play traveling to Mount St. Mary’s to take on the Mountaineers. The Stags extended their win streak to four defeating the Mountaineers 5-2. This moved the Stags to 7-8 overall and 1-0 in conference, the loss moved the Mountaineers to 5-9 and 0-2 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Fairfield swept the three doubles matches with Smart and Hodges winning the first 6-4. Condos and O’Brien followed winning 6-4 and closing out the doubles matches were Benaibbouche and Kollias who won 6-2.
The Stags did not fare as well in the singles matches but still won four total of the six matches. Smart won both sets 6-1 in a dominant performance followed by Hodges who won 6-0, 6-2. Condos also won 6-3, 6-1 with Shah winning the number six singles 6-3 and 7-6.
Head coach Jeff Bricker said “It’s nice to start off MAAC play 1-0. Great energy by the men today to come out quickly and assert themselves. We still have a few things to clean up, but a good start!”
On Thursday the Stags will continue their season and conference play with an away match at Siena at noon.
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