By Dylan Botelho, Contributing Writer
The UMass Dartmouth men’s tennis team fell to an 0-4 record versus Rutgers-Newark on Saturday, March 18. Falling to Rutgers-Newark with a 6-1 final total score, the Corsairs managed to collect their first point this season.
UMass Dartmouth’s Summer Forest-Bulley tallied the team’s lone point of the season after the No.5 singles matchup in which he defeated Rutgers-Newark senior, Abhinav Dani, 6-2, 6-0.
Forest-Bulley’s point prevented the Corsairs from a total sweep for the first time this season. However, Rutgers-Newark managed to sweep UMass Dartmouth in doubles matchups. The Corsairs didn’t go down without a fight in doubles matchups, as it took Rutgers-Newark to win off tie breaking decisions in the first two out of three matchups.
In the No.1 matchup, Rutgers-Newark Brandon Davis and Ray Fan played to a 7-1 tiebreaker in order to defeat UMass Dartmouth’s Corey Rafter and Anthony Jospeh.
The No.2 matchup of the day was even closer, finishing with a 7-4 Rutgers-Newark tiebreaker victory from Kevin Martin and Parth Shah against Patrick Pacheco and Justin Torres.
In singles matches, the No.2 and No.3 matchups were just as tightly contested in the first sets. Although Rutgers-Newark would pull away in the second sets of both matchups, the first sets were neck and neck. Corsairs’ Anthony Joseph kept it close with Rutgers-Newark’s Fan with a 7-5 defeat in the first set, before Fan pulled away on the second set 6-2.
Like the matchup before them, Patrick Pacheco was defeated 7-5 in his first set of the No.3 matchup versus Parth Shah. In the second set of the matchup, Patrick Pacheco kept up with Shah till the end, losing 6-4.
The match on Saturday marked the first time both universities have faced off in tennis matchups. UMass Dartmouth will remain at home this week, facing off against Salve Regina at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday at the Tennis Courts.