After a series of early season weather cancellations, the 2018 Mercer men’s tennis team got on the court for the first time this Spring in a win against Illinois Valley on Monday, March 26. Despite losing two of the three doubles, Mercer outplayed Illinois Valley in the singles winning four out of six, yielding a final match score of 5-4.
Despite being at an elemental disadvantage, sophomore Noah Reyes defeated Illinois Valley’s Ryan Coon 6-0 in both of the final two singles matches to secure the win for Mercer. “I’m not playing outside much the only issue was the wind which didn’t really affect my game much,” Reyes said. “I expected tough opponents against players that play outside more times than I have especially in colder weather so I figured that would be a little more of a challenge,”
The duo of Reyes and Greg Del Favero would be the only pair to get a win in the doubles match, as the pairings of Seven McGlotten-Bonds/Bennett Sherr and James Bueno/Aaron Burt both fell to Illinois Valley duos of Aaron Pellican/Mason Clark and Joe LaShonse/Nick Needs.
“[Doubles] are a little more difficult in the sense that there’s a whole other player on the other team so there’s a lot of different types of shots that you have to play,” Burt said. “Its very individualistic for singles so if you make a mistake you know what you did wrong, in doubles if your partner makes a mistake you have to depend on them,”
While the win marked Mercer’s first match against an opponent all season, Illinois Valley was playing their third match in three days. Illinois Valley was also faced with a substantial amount of traveling in that three day span as they traveled to and from Maryland with matches against Harford and Rowan. Illinois Valley head coach Julie Milota claims that her team has enjoyed the traveling and values playing as many matches as possible.
“A match means something, practice doesn’t so sometimes for players it’s hard to go from practice to match play, so whenever you can do matches always better for the player because they can get more attuned to the intensity level,” Milota said
Fortunately for Mercer, the intensity level that Illinois Valley experienced the past couple days wouldn’t be enough to put them over the top in this match. Mercer head coach Marc Vecchiola liked what he saw out of his players in their first match especially considering the scheduling circumstances of the first part of their schedule.
“They’re just trying to keep it simple right now, and footwork is always a key and just trying to keep their emotions under control is important,” Vecchiola said.
