The Orange and Blue continue to show their dominance this spring season after another successful weekend of tennis. The Bison traveled over to Bryn Mawr, Penn. and claimed a 6-1 victory over Villanova this past Saturday, then turned around to face Saint Joseph’s at home on Sunday. They also took a win from the Hawks, 4-3.
“Leading into all of our matches, we are really just trying to have fun with what we’re doing,” Amar Tahirovic ʼ26 said. “We really know what we’re capable of, it all just comes down to being fearless when a match starts and executing how we want to execute.”
The Bison’s match against Villanova started with the battle for the doubles point. Dynamic duo Tahirovic and Brendan McDonald ʼ26 quickly won their match 6-2, with Nelson Alapi ʼ28 and Liam Kilmer ʼ27 following behind with a 6-1 victory. These gave the Orange and Blue the first point for the team match, leaving juniors Adam Stavrakasʼ and Oscar Bain Moreno de Vega’s match unfinished.
The team carried this momentum into singles, where five Bison won their matches. Stavrakas and Tahirovic swept their games in two, going 6-0, 6-1 and 6-4, 6-1 respectively. McDonald followed suit by winning 6-4, 6-4 in his match. Kilmer’s and Bain’s singles play both pushed to three sets but came up on top over their Wildcat opponents. These wins racked up five of the six points the Bison won the match with.
But the weekend was not over for the Orange and Blue. The squad returned home for a close match against Saint Joseph’s, coming out on top once again. Bain and Stavrakas won their doubles match 7-6, but McDonald and Tahirovic fell just short. Combined with Alapi and Kilmer’s loss, the first overall match point went to the Hawks.
“My favorite moment from this past weekend was clinching the match for the team against St. Joseph’s,” Tahirovic shared. “We lost the doubles point, but the team was strong enough to fight back to pull out the 4:3 win.”
The Bison turned the tide by coming back to win four singles matches. Tahirovic won his game in two, going 6-3, 7-5. Stavrakas also defeated his opponent in consecutive sets, finishing 6-2, 7-5. A 6-3, 6-2 win by Alapi also provided a point for the Orange and Blue, but it took Kilmer’s 6-4, 6-3 victory to seal the match for the Bison.
“This week going into the tournament in California, we are working a lot on our doubles because the tournament is strictly doubles only so just focusing on doubles strategy and fine-tuning has been our main focus this week.”
The Bison will be back in action this upcoming weekend on the west coast for a tournament followed by a match against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges on Sunday, March 2.
