The Fairfield tennis team started off their three straight Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference matches with their final road performance of the season against Marist. The 9-9 Fairfield team bested the 2-11 Marist Red Foxes with a score of 5-2.
Fairfield won the number one, three, five and six singles matches along with the number one and three doubles matches. The match started out with a dominant performance from Fairfield’s number three doubles team Andrew Immink ‘25 and graduate student Charlie Morkel winning their match 6-0.
In a singles comeback win Sam Hodges ‘25 came back after dropping the first set 6-3 to win the next two 7-5 and 6-2 to close out the come from behind victory. Will O’Brien ‘25 ended the day with a nailbiter as he won the third set 12-10 after splitting the first two. Head coach Jeff Bricker said that it was a “Great job by the guys today to step and play with a couple guys out,” according to the match’s official recap.
Fairfield then went onto their senior day at home vs Quinnipiac. The Stags fell 4-3 against the Bobcats. Immink and Morkel won their doubles match continuing their undefeated record of 7-0 as a duo this season.
In the singles matches of the day, Hodges won his 15th of the year with a dominant 6-0, 6-2 win. Along with that, Morkel got his 16th win of the year with a 6-2, 7-6 win and a more exciting ending.
Bricker commented after the match in it’s official recap that it was a “tough loss today.” he continued with, “We just didn’t close them out, and in the end, they played better than us on the big points,” The Stags did win the doubles point of the match however they dropped too many singles games necessary to beat the Bobcats.
The Fairfield men’s tennis team concluded its regular season against Rider University on Saturday, April 16 with a win and ended with a season record of 9-9 and an in conference record of 3-3. They did end their season on a high however as they swept Rider (2-12) 7-0.
Morkel and Immink finished off their perfect record as a doubles team for the season with a close 6-4 win giving the duo eight wins and zero losses. Morkel led the team overall with 17 doubles wins of the season.
Kaya Gore ‘22 also had an impressive day winning his 18th singles match of the season putting him at 18-4 overall with 11 of those wins coming in the number one spot.
In the mathes official recap coach Bricker stated that, “The season came to a close a bit earlier than expected but it was nice to finish on a high note with a win.” He continued with, “We’ve got a lot of work to do but we will be back and ready next year.”
Morkel commented on the end of the season saying that it was, “anticlimactic. It is difficult to have put in all the hard work during the year to have it end so unexpectedly,” He followed up by saying that he thought, “we have a great young and talented team. I think we had a good chance of winning the conference and find this ending disappointing. However we have to be proud about all the work we put in and keep our heads up high.”
He then shouted out the women’s team, saying that he is “very excited to see how the women’s team do this upcoming weekend. They had great potential going into the season and it has recently all come together.” Continuing with the advice he said, “keep a close eye on their results because if anyone can do it, it is them.”
The Stags finished their season with a nice 2-1 stretch against MAAC competition putting them at .500 overall. They will look to build on their young players and improve going into next season.
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