(SURPRISE, Ariz.) No. 3 seed PLNU Men's Tennis tied its best ever finish at the PacWest Championships, placing third after defeating No. 4 seed Hawai'i Pacific 4-3 on Saturday in the conference third place match.
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Alexander Leischner won the clinching match at No. 1 singles, winning tiebreaks in the second (7-3) and third set (10-8) to overcome a 2-6 defeat in the opening stanza.
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With the win, Leischner extends his PacWest Championships record for most singles victories to 11, as the senior won all but one of his singles matches in his conference tournament career. The only match he didn't win was left unfinished in 2022 with Leischner ahead 3-0 and up two breaks in the third set.
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Nabeel Khan and
Niclas Goltz teamed up to win 6-3 at No. 2 doubles, but HPU won the doubles points with a tiebreak victory at No. 1.
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Point Loma overcame that to win four of the six singles matches, with
Andrew Suver cruising 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3.
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David Fisinger broke his opponent's serve a couple times late in set two to put the finishing touches on his 6-4, 7-5 victory.
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Elias Weeks overcame a 3-6 defeat in set one of his No. 6 singles match to win the final two sets by scores of 6-2 and 6-4. He combined tremendous athleticism and powerful serving to move the Sea Lions to within one point of securing third place in the PacWest.
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Finn Kirschner won his second set at No. 4, 6-0, to force a deciding third stanza, during which he trailed 2-5 but battled back to tie it at 5-all. However, HPU managed to win, which meant that No. 1 singles would determine the match winner.
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Leischner was down 3-5 in the third set tiebreak and saved a match point when trailing 6-7 before coming back to clinch PLNU's third-place finish in the conference tournament.
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Point Loma (13-6 overall) will now await its seeding in the NCAA West Regional as an expected at-large selection for the regional set to take place on either May 9 or 10.
