BALTIMORE - Haverford College's men's tennis team took a lead over host and eighth-ranked Johns Hopkins University into singles action Saturday afternoon but the host Blue Jays swept the six singles match to rally for a 7-2 Centennial Conference win over the Fords.
Haverford (7-5, 5-1 CC) suffers its first conference loss while Hopkins (12-2, 6-0) protects its unbeaten league record.
The Fords got off to a great start winning doubles matches in the Nos. 1 and 3 slots.
Danny Himelstein (pictured) and Kevin Caulfield, ranked eighth in the Atlantic South Region, downed the Blue Jays' tandem of Tanner Brown and Erik Lim, a pairing that is fifth in the Atlantic South, by an 8-5 score.
At No. 3, Haverford's Luis Acaba and Sloan Millman battled Hopkins' Andy Hersh and Jeff Kramer evenly throughout the match. Finally, Acaba and Millman earned the 9-8 victory by capturing the tie-breaker by a score of 10-4.
The Blue Jays, trailing 2-1 heading into the singles matches, swept all six to rally for the victory and thwart Haverford's upset bid.
Caulfield dropped the opening set to Brown at No. 1 but rolled to a 6-3 win in the second set to even the score. The duo went into the third set super-tiebreak where Brown was able to outlast Caulfield, 1-0 (10-5), for the match victory.
Matt Romei won his first set against Hopkins' Lim at 3-singles, but eventually suffered the loss in 6-1, 6-3 victories by Lim.
Haverford squares off against Franklin & Marshall College in its next outing, Saturday, April 20, at home on the Bramall Courts beginning at at noon.