By Jacob Norling
April 19, 2021
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) The Warriors Men's Tennis Team (4-7, 2-4) completed the regular season by capping off a season sweep of Hope International (0-10, 0-10) on Friday by a score of 7-0. The Men now look forward to the start of the GSAC tournament tomorrow in San Diego.
 
Westmont handled HIU in Fullerton back on March 5 with a 7-0 sweep and much of the same in store on Friday in Montecito.
 
The Warriors claimed the doubles point before dropping a single game to the Royals, as both doubles pairs (Ethan Ha and Logan Thompson, Callen Hein, and Matthew Alleman) won 6-0. Sebastian Vethan and Benjamin Saito capped off doubles play by finishing things with a 6-2 victory as well.
 
On court one Ethan Ha made quick work of Riley Morrison by completing the first singles match of the day by a score of 6-2, 6-4. Alleman was the next Warriors to tally a point when he defeated Jason Reddy 6-1, 6-3.
 
Saito and Vethan both carried over their momentum from doubles play with 6-1, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-2 victories respectively.
 
Logan Thompson only dropped one game to HIU's Dylan Barrett and he claimed court two 6-1, 6-0, and the Warriors completed the clean sweep when Callen Hein outlasted Yazid Benchengra 7 (10)-6 (8), 6-2.
 
Westmont begins play in the GSAC tournament tomorrow in San Diego when they take on Arizona Christian (3-8, 2-4) in the quarterfinal, in the first meeting between the two schools this season. The Warriors enter the tournament as the number four seed while ACU enters as the five.
 
If Westmont comes out victorious tomorrow they will match up with #13 San Diego Christian (9-3, 9-0) in the tournament semifinal on Wednesday. The Hawks, who went undefeated in nine GSAC games, enter the tournament as the only team in the conference to be ranked in the top 25.
 
The first time Westmont met up with the Hawks on February 20 San Diego Christian swept the Warriors 4-0. More recently on March 30 the Hawks handed the Warriors a 4-2 defeat.
 
The Warriors have won the conference tournament only three times in program history (1996, 1997, and 2017) and go into the week hoping to get past the semis for the first time since 2018.
 
ACU and Westmont met back-to-back years in the tournament in 2018 and 2019, with ACU defeating the Warriors in the championship in '18 then a year later in the semifinals.