HAVERFORD, Pa. – A tough day in singles play and a narrow loss in doubles action allowed visiting Franklin & Marshall College to steal a 6-3 Centennial Conference victory over host Haverford College on Saturday afternoon.
The Fords (7-6, 5-2 CC), ranked eighth in the Atlantic South Region, picked up a win at No. 1 doubles to start the day against a Diplomat squad ranked ninth in the Atlantic South.
Kevin Caulfield and Danny Himelstein downed the F&M (8-8, 5-1) duo of William MacArthur and Nolan Bacchieri by a score of 8-4 to give Haverford its first, and unfortunately only, lead of the day.
The Diplomats were able to even the score with a win at 2-doubles setting up the No. 3 doubles finish as a momentum-setting match.
Haverford's Luis Acaba and Sloan Millman battled Doug Kaplan and Samuel Stone point for point for the win at 3-doubles, staving off five match-points before falling to the F&M pair in a tie-breaker, 9-8 (7-2).
Though the pair of Matt Romei and Matthew Cebul fell just short of victory at No. 2 doubles, the Haverford pair each captured a point in singles action.
Romei ran through F&M's Tommy Weibye in straight sets (6-3, 6-2) at No. 3, and Cebul made even quicker work of Hamza Pataudi at 6-singles (6-2, 6-1).
The two points from the two Matts would be the only singles points of the day for Haverford, however, as it loss a conference match for just the second time this season.
The duel at No. 1 singles matched the region's Nos. 10 and 12 players in Haveford's Kevin Caulfield and F&M's Ross Silverberg, respectively.
Caulfield got off on the right foot with a 6-4 win in the opening set but Silverberg squared things with a 7-5 win in set number two. The pair were on serve through the beginning of the third set but a Silverberg break proved to be the winning points in his 6-4 victory.
Haverford, fourth in the league standings, travels into Maryland on Sunday afternoon for a non-conference match against Salisbury University, then closes out the regular season with a midweek match at Ursinus College (13-5, 4-3 CC) and a home date on Saturday against 26th-ranked Swarthmore College (9-7, 5-2 CC).
The five-team Centennial tournament begins Wednesday, May 1.