(SAN DIEGO) A storybook season for PLNU Men's Tennis would not have a storybook ending.
 
Hosting an NCAA West Regional match for the first time, second-seeded Point Loma got out to a fast start by taking the doubles point against third-seeded Hawaii Pacific in front of a sizable home crowd.
 
But the Sharks bounced back to beat the Sea Lions, 4-1, ending one of PLNU's best seasons in program history.
 
"There was so much hope and confidence that if we played good tennis, we could beat anybody," Head Coach Curt Wheeler said. "I tried to remind them of what an incredible year it was. It's the difficult part about playoffs is that it can come down to one tough match.
 
"Even if you feel like you're the stronger team or are right there with them, that's why you do it. That's what makes it exciting but also what makes it tough."
 
The momentum was in PLNU's favor after the Sea Lions won both doubles matches that finished.
 
At No. 2 doubles, Tyler Davis and David Strassburger were down a break, trailing 3-4, but they broke their opponents' serve right back to tie the set. The duo then held serve before Strassburger's overhead smash at the net and Davis' backhand winner down the line earned another break to win the set 6-4.
 
Nabeel Khan and Elias Weeks were up a break at No. 3 doubles, leading 5-2, before HPU won three-straight games to tie the set. PLNU's pairing then held serve before scoring the first two points of the next game.
 
HPU answered back to get to within one point of forcing a tiebreak, but Khan and Weeks buckled down to win the final two points of the set and give Point Loma a 1-0 overall match lead.
 
"Of late we've been playing some great doubles," Wheeler said. "At the conference tournament it was a big strength for us. The guys came out playing confident and focused. They were patient and aggressive when they needed to be and it showed, getting a strong doubles point against a very strong team."
 
Winning the doubles point proved to be the high point for the Sea Lions, as the Sharks won all four singles matches that finished and claimed the first set in all six singles matches overall.
 
Point Loma fought back to win the second set on three singles courts, but it proved to be too steep a hill for PLNU to climb.
 
"The start of singles didn't go our way," Wheeler said. "Credit to HPU, they were playing some really good tennis. You combine that with a couple slow starts on our side and that's what it turns into."
 
When No. 2 singles player Davis went down injured in the first set of his match, the momentum had started to swing HPU's way.
 
"As a coach, our mindset is that it doesn't matter what's going on on another court, but the reality is that people observe what's going on – team members do," Wheeler said. "Tyler has been such a strong player for us in doubles and singles so to see that, when we know that every time he steps on the singles court chances are that he's going to win, that's hard."
 
Davis was the first of three Sea Lions who required medical treatment in singles, not including another player who was battling an injury from last week's PacWest Championships.
 
"When you're playing a team and know it's most likely going to be pretty close, that's something that can take a little bit of time but I thought the guys responded well after that because it's out of their control," Wheeler said. "They continued to battle but it wasn't the easiest for sure."
 
To Davis' credit, he continued to play despite being clearly hobbled, and even took a 4-3 lead in the second set. But with his mobility clearly limited, he just didn't have enough in the tank to complete a comeback.
 
Strassburger then nearly overcame an 0-3 deficit in the second set of his No. 5 singles match, tying it up at 4-4 before HPU came away with the 6-4, 6-4 win to take a 3-1 match lead.
 
With the Sharks needing just one more singles victory to clinch the regional matchup, Point Loma's Alexander Leischner (No. 1), Andrew Suver (No. 4) and Fabian Penzkofer (No. 3) all forced a third set in their respective matches to keep the Sea Lions alive.
 
"It made me really proud as a coach to see them battle back on all the courts, but to be able to get the second set on three of those courts to just be able to continue the match was a really big thing," Wheeler said. "It's hard to finish. Once you get to that third point, it's really difficult to say where that fourth point is going to come from."
 
But the task proved to be just a little too tall for PLNU, with HPU taking the third set at No. 4 to win the match, 4-1.
 
"We were at 0-0 at the start of all those three sets and I was confident that we were going to come back and win them, but it just didn't go our way," Wheeler said.
 
Point Loma (18-4 overall) finishes its historic season with the most wins in a single season of its NCAA era. The Sea Lions also posted their longest winning streak (12) since joining the NCAA and finished a program-best third place at last week's PacWest Championships.