HILTON HEAD, SC — The Wittenberg men's tennis team capped its annual Spring Break trip with a hard-fought 5-4 loss to Bridgewater. The Tigers' scheduled match against St. Joseph's (Ind.) was cancelled.
The Tigers ended their trip south with an 8-3 record. Wittenberg will open the final leg of the 2011-12 season with a pair of matches at DePauw on March 17 against the host Tigers and Franklin.
Bridgewater won two of the three doubles matches, including a pair of tight decisions at No. 2 and No. 3. As it turned out, that was the key to the match as the two teams split the six singles matches evenly.
Freshman Sasha Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia) teamed with junior Sergio Fishkin (Minsk, Belarus) to win at No. 1 doubles. Fishkin added a win at No. 5 singles. He was joined on the winning side of the singles ledger by sophomoreTyler Strong (Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual) at No. 6 singles and freshmanAlexey Topolyanskiy (Moscow, Russia) at the No. 2 position.