AMHERST, N.Y. -- The Daemen University men's tennis team wraps up their final East Coast Conference home match on Saturday, April 13 as they welcome the Queens Knights in a 6:30 PM match at the Miller Tennis Center.

The Wildcats come into their third ECC match of the season with a 5-10 overall record and are 0-2 in conference play. After going on a 3-1 run in the middle of March with non-conference wins over Millennia Atlantic, Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Saint Vincent, Daemen has lost three matches in a row, falling to Le Moyne, 1-6, in a non-league match and dropping both ECC match ups 0-7 to the UDC Firebirds. Graduate student Zachary Laplante (Ottawa, Ont.) leads the Wildcats with seven singles victories on the year, and was the only Wildcat to take their singles match into a tiebreak against the Firebirds last weekend. Sophomore Juan Alvarez (Puebla, Mexico) and freshman Lasse Mergens (Bochum, Germany) each have six singles wins this season. After joining the team in December, freshman Lucas Garcia (Bogota, Columbia) has gone 4-6 in singles play, winning three No. 4 singles victories and earning one win at No. 2 singles. Sophomore Alex Lumanog (Albuquerque, N.M.) is 4-8 in No. 1 singles play, and leads the team alongside Alvarez with five doubles victories on the year in No. 1 doubles. Sophomore Rohan Chitanand (Den Haag, Netherlands) and Mergens have combined for four doubles victories this season. 

Daemen will be honoring Laplante for Senior Day on Saturday. Over his three years at Daemen, the graduate student has compiled 24 singles victories and 13 doubles wins. A leader for the Wildcats throughout his tenure, Laplante has helped the Wildcats to 13 match wins over his time at Daemen.

As the defending ECC champions, Queens came into the 2024 season tied with St. Thomas Aquinas for first in the ECC Preseason Poll. The Knights come into Saturday's match with a 7-6 overall record and 3-1 record in ECC matches, dropping their only conference match thus far to UDC, 3-4 on March 29. Four of Queens' six losses this season have been to Division I programs, falling to Hofstra (3-4) in the spring opener, Monmouth (1-6) on March 22, FDU (3-4) on April 2 and St. John's (2-5) on April 8. The Knights have won three of their last five matches, picking up a 4-3 win over Fordham on Wednesday and beating Post (4-3) and STAC (5-2) in early April. Freshman Noah Gauthier is the defending ECC Rookie of the Week, earning his second Rookie OTW honor this season after a 3-0 week in singles play. Five Knights have double-digit singles wins this season, with Ronni Rikkonen leading the way with 13 victories at No. 1 singles play and junior Cameron Henricy posting 12 singles victories this season after playing No. 2 doubles for the majority of the season. 

Daemen will travel to Queens next Saturday (April 20) in a 7 PM match in Flushing, N.Y.

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