Kalamazoo, Mich. – This past weekend the Denison men's tennis team traveled to Kalamazoo, Michigan to take part in the ITA Central Region Championships in the team's final tournament of the fall season. The Big Red picked up 21 victories on the weekend, finishing a combined 14-7 in singles play and 4-4 in doubles competition. Each of Denison's six singles players came away with at least one victory, with five Big Red players winning multiple singles matches. In doubles play, the Big Red got multiple victories from two different pairs.
Tyler Gargas led the way for the Big Red in singles, winning four matches to go 4-2 on the weekend. The freshman won four consecutive matches in his flight before finally falling in the championship semifinals 6-7, 10-8, 2-6 to Bernardo Neves of Washington University.
Jamie McDonald picked up three consecutive singles victories without dropping a set, defeating Landon Walker (Monmouth College), Alex Cadigan (Kalamazoo College), and Jacob Zalenski (Kenyon College). McDonald finally fell 6-4, 6-3 to Charlie Pei (University of Chicago) to end his winning streak.
Mitchell Thai, Kevin Brown, and Vlad Rotnov each picked up two victories in singles play. Thai defeated Matt Harris (Baldwin Wallace) 6-0, 6-1 and later defeated Colton Johnson-Taylor (Allegheny College) 6-1, 6-1. Brown topped Nick Zazove (Lake Forest College) 7-5, 6-4 and then defeated Radha Vishnubhotla (Washington University) 4-6, 6-3 for his second win of the weekend. Rotnov beat Vivi Vemula (Case Western Reserve Univ.) 6-4, 6-1 and Bulnes Aramburu (Earlham) 6-1, 6-0. Patrick McGuigan also picked up a win for the Big Red, defeating Wyatt Dale (Principia) 7-5, 6-0 to total 14 singles victories for Denison.
In doubles competition, the tandem of McDonald and Thai picked up two wins, as did the pair of Brown and Rotnov. McDonald and Thai defeated Siddharth Rajupet and Henry Squire (Case Western Reserve Univ.) 8-5 and later defeated Shouta Fukamachi and Jakraraj Rungaseng (Ohio Wesleyan) 8-5. Brown and Rotnov topped Matthew Gittings and Matthew Porges (Oberlin) 8-2, and later won against Jacob Palley and Colin Sandgren (Millikin), 8-4.
After closing the fall season in Kalamazoo, the Big Red will be back in action on February 9 against the University of Chicago in Cleveland, Ohio.
