AMHERST, N.Y. -- The Daemen University men's tennis team travels to Flushing, N.Y. to play the Queens Knights for the second time in one week, taking on QC on Saturday, April 20 in a 7 PM East Coast Conference match at the Queens Tennis Bubble. The Wildcats will then play St. Thomas Aquinas on Sunday, April 21 in a doubleheader at 12 PM and 4 PM to wrap up the regular season.
Daemen comes into the final weekend of regular season play in the hunt for their first ECC win of the season, sitting at 0-3 in conference play and 5-11 overall. The Wildcats are on a four-game skid, dropping all three ECC matches 0-7 to District of Columbia and Queens and getting upended 1-6 to Division I program Le Moyne over the past month. Prior to their final home match of the 2024 season against Queens last weekend, graduate student
Zachary Laplante (Ottawa, Ont.) was honored for his Senior Day after leading the Wildcats with seven singles victories this season and 24 total singles victories and 13 doubles wins. Laplante ranks sixth in the Daemen record books in career singles wins and ninth in combined career singles and doubles wins. Daemen's newcomers have made an impact this season, with sophomore
Juan Alvarez (Puebla, Mexico) and freshman
Lasse Mergens (Bochum, Germany) each tallying six singles wins this year. After joining the team in December, freshman
Lucas Garcia (Bogota, Columbia) has won four singles victories, earning three wins at No. 4 singles and at No. 2 singles. Sophomore
Alex Lumanog (Albuquerque, N.M.) has four wins at 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.
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 an 11-6 overall record and 4-1 record in ECC matches, dropping their only conference match thus far to UDC, 3-4, on March 29. Queens is riding a five-match win streak, including topping nationally-ranked Adelphi in a huge 4-3 victory on Wednesday. Junior Cameron Henricy earned ECC Player of the Week after going 4-0 in singles play last week. Five Knights have double-digit singles wins this season, with Ronni Rikkonen leading the way with 17 victories at No. 1 singles play, and Henricy, sophomore Lucas Foix Sotos and senior Omar El Shehawey each posting 14 singles victories this season.
St. Thomas Aquinas sits in second in the ECC with a 2-2 record in conference play and is 11-6 overall on the year. The Spartans are riding a four match win streak, picking up 5-2 wins over Adelphi and UDC a pair of match sweeps over Dominican and Post in the month of April. Both of the Spartans' losses this season have been to Queens, with the Knights topping STAC 6-1 on March 25 and again on April 6, 5-2. Freshman Henry Ronnberg was named the ECC Rookie of the Week for the third time this season after going 6-0 in singles and 3-0 in doubles. Freshman Seth Newman has earned Rookie of the Week twice, while sophomore Ondrej Sramek is the only Spartan to be named Player of the Week this season.
Daemen will play in the ECC Tournament next week, April 26-27, in Flushing, N.Y.
Daemen University features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 17 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.
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