Junior Sam Hodges ‘25 was named as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player of the week on Jan. 24. He went 3-1 in the Army Spring Kick-Off winning a singles match vs the number eight player in Division 1 where Hodges went 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 to win. His one loss came on a singles tiebreak. He also played doubles and won both of his matches.
The Stags men’s tennis team continued their spring semester by heading to Yale University. The Bulldogs defeated the Stags 7-0 in a not very close match. In the number doubles match Jim Ji and Eric Le of Yale defeated graduate students Nick Condos and Thomas Smart 6-2. The number doubles match was a little closer with Kostas Kollias ‘26 and Keean Shah ‘24 winning five games but ultimately falling to Vignesh Gogineni and Dylan Tsoi of Yale who won seven games to take the set. In the final doubles match Alex Aguiar ‘26 and Hodges lost 3-6 to Walker Oberg and Luke Neal.
In the number one singles match Smart took on Gogineni. The first set was very close with Smart forcing an extra game in the set but he ultimately lost 7-5. He eventually lost the set 7-5. Smart could not gain his momentum back as he also dropped the second set 6-3 giving Yale the first singles match. The second singles match saw Ji defeat Hodges 6-3, 6-3 winning both sets decisively. The number three singles match saw Condos manage to force a tiebreaker in the first set which he eventually lost 9-7. The second set saw a decisive Ji victory winning 6-2 and taking the match. Aguiar, Kollias and graduate student Griffin Schlesinger all also lost their matches leading to the Stags losing 7-0.
“We had our chances in both singles and doubles but didn’t play the big points well enough. We saw a lot that we liked, but also a lot of things to improve upon,” Head coach Jeff Bricker told fairfieldstags.com.
Following their defeat at the hands of the Bulldogs, the Stags headed to another Ivy League school to face 11 seed Columbia in a doubleheader. The Stags fell by a score of 7-0 in both games.
In the first game Shah and Kollias lost 6-0 vs the Lions’ top pair, the Stags also lost the number two and three doubles matches as well. The number two match went unfinished as Aguiar and Hodges won two games to Columbia’s five, giving the Lions the win. The final doubles match saw Luca Benaibbouche ‘27 and Will O’Brien ‘25 fall by a score of 6-2.
Only Hodges put up a fight in the singles matches, where in the number one singles he lost the first set four games to six then the second two games to six. No other Stag won more than three games across their singles matches as the Stags fell 7-0.
“It was a good experience to play Columbia and see the level of a top team in the country. Hopefully, the guys learned a few things and can use it going forward,” stated Bricker to fairfieldstags.com.
The second game saw the Stags face a similar result as they could not compete with a top 15 team in the nation.
The top doubles pair of Condos and Smart fell to Columbia’s Theo Winegar and Michael Zheng in a clean 6-0 sweep. Hodges and Aguiar managed to win two games in the number two doubles but lost 6-2. The final doubles pair had the most success of the Stags with Benaibbouche and Kollias winning three games and losing 6-3.
In the number one singles match Smart lost the first set 6-3 then the second 6-2, showing the most success of any Stag across the singles matches. Aguiar won two games in his first set but was swept in the second. Condos won three games in the first set but was swept in the second as well. Benaibbouche won a game in the first set and two in the second, Schlesinger was swept in both sets, and in the number six singles, Jessett Calum won a game in each set.
The Stags men’s tennis team will have their next match on Feb. 2 at Brown University. For more information visit www.fairfieldstags.com.
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