By Zach DeMarcus
February 13, 2018
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Miles Hale and Austin Lee came up with big wins to keep Westmont Men's Tennis (1-2) in the match against Cal Lutheran (0-1) this afternoon. The Warriors would go on to sweep doubles to win the match by a score of 5-4.
 
In singles play, Cal Lutheran's Ransom Braaten defeated Christian Mathis 6-2, 6-3 and Dara Kashani edged Westmont's Jordan Strandness 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. Hale took down Lucas Tilly 7-5, 6-4 to put Westmont in the win column. Lee came back to triumph over Sebastian Ariza 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 to give Westmont its second win.
 
The Kingsmen would win the final two matches with Michael Sulahian defeating Corey Stephens 6-4, 6-4 and Yahn Gawrit escaping John T. Joens 7-5, 7-6 (7-3) – putting the Warriors in a 2-4 hole.
 
Westmont head coach Mark Basham said, "In singles, I thought we were fair. We didn't have our number one Luke Whalen. We had to get the matches that we did. I had moved Corey in front of Austin. Austin did a great job of not being discouraged by that. He went in and won a key match for us at six.
 
"Miles, who's a really good freshman for us, won a match at four – that put us down 2-4, but gave us a fighting chance," added Basham.
 
Westmont used that fighting chance to the fullest as they would go on to win all three doubles matches. Mathis and Lee conquered Tilly and Andrew Tufenkian 8-1. Joens and Hale ran past Braaten and Kashani 8-3. Strandness and Stephens rounded out the day with an 8-4 victory over Gawrit and Sulahian to seal the 5-4 victory for Westmont.
 
Basham said, "I think it was a match where we could have played better despite not having Luke today. I was still happy that we had a fighting chance to be in there for the doubles – then the guys were off to the races. It was cool to see how they performed in the doubles.
 
"It was good to get a win after losing our first two to two very good teams in UC Riverside and Claremont," added Basham. "It's nice to beat a team more like our level today to get some momentum."
 
The Warriors head to Arizona for the weekend where they will face both #10 Arizona Christian and Ottawa (Ariz.) on Saturday. Those matches are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. respectively.
 
"Luke is not 100 percent right and Arizona Christian is going to be really good. I'm just excited about this. I think we're going to have to keep getting better each and every day and see how mentally tough our guys can be. We're going to have to play very well," finished Basham.