(AZUSA, Calif.) Azusa Pacific defeated PLNU Men's Tennis in the NCAA West Regional, 4-0, ending another successful season for the Sea Lions.
 
For the second-straight year, Point Loma reached the regional, making its third-ever NCAA postseason appearance.
 
"Any time you make the regional playoffs, it's for sure a successful year," Head Coach Curt Wheeler said. "This is a great group in terms of their team chemistry and their work ethic. Everything they brought, it was a tremendous year."
 

PLNU Men's Tennis completes another successful season with back-to-back NCAA West Regional appearances.#GoSeaLions 🎾 pic.twitter.com/qTrqPO9aap

— PLNU Sea Lions (@PLNUSeaLions) May 15, 2024

 
To start the match, the doubles point came down to the wire, with a tiebreak on Court No. 3 needed to decide the outcome.
 
Alexander Leischner and David Strassburger dominated their No. 1 doubles matchup, 6-2, to give the Sea Lions an early lead in doubles.
 
Nabeel Khan and Elias Weeks broke their opponents' serve to tie their No. 2 match, 3-3, before APU won 6-4 to set up a winner-take-all match at No. 3.
 
Andrew Suver and Lukas Schuster took a 6-5 advantage in their doubles set after winning the deuce point when Suver's serve was returned into the net.
 
The Cougars then forced a tiebreak and took an immediate 3-0 advantage before back-to-back serves from Suver were returned out of bounds to get the Sea Lions back in it.
 
However, APU won four of the next five points to win the tiebreak and take a 1-0 lead in the match.
 
"We had some great starts in doubles," Wheeler said. "No. 1 doubles came through with a huge win over one of the best doubles teams in the country this year. They set the tone really well. Two doubles and three doubles were super close battles, and we just needed a few more points."
 
The hosts then won the first set in every singles match, but the visitors fought back and led at various points in the second set on four different courts.
 
Schuster held a late 5-4 advantage on No. 5 and nearly forced a third set.
 
Suver earned a service break at No. 2 singles to go up 4-1 and was leading 5-4 at the time the match result was determined.
 
Leischner also held a 4-3 advantage in his second set at No. 1, while Matt Melosch led 2-1 in the second stanza and was level at 2-2 when APU clinched victory.
 

PLNU Men's Tennis falls to APU in the NCAA West Regional.

Point Loma finishes the season with a 13-9 overall record. pic.twitter.com/dLqJjUqTK7

— PLNU Sea Lions (@PLNUSeaLions) May 15, 2024

 
"There were a lot of opportunities that we needed to execute a few more shots and win a few more points, but still without winning the doubles point we were confident that we could go and take four of the six singles," Wheeler said. "The three matches that were left were incredibly close."
 
Point Loma finishes the season with a 13-9 overall record after making back-to-back NCAA West Regional appearances for the first time in program history.
 
"Obviously credit to Azusa Pacific," Wheeler said. "They have a great, strong team but we were ready to play and ready to battle. I'm sure the guys would like to play them again knowing how close and how many opportunities there were."
 
Next season, PLNU will continue its quest for its first NCAA postseason victory.
 
"The ones that are returning, I know they are motivated," Wheeler said. "They're very focused on taking a few more steps next year and that's going to start in the summer, progress into the fall and into next spring. There's already some good goals and some good focus on what we can achieve next year. I know that we can achieve some great things."