SWARTHMORE, Pa. - The No. 29 Haverford College men's tennis team (13-6) was edged by No. 28 Swarthmore (14-6) in a 5-4 thriller as Centennial Conference semifinals action moved indoors at the Michael Mullan Tennis Center on Saturday.
Coming back from the brink of defeat at 4-1 to tie the score at 4-4 entering the final match to reach completion, the Fords used a huge rally from Adam Chow at No. 5 to complete that comeback. Chow was down 5-0 himself in the deciding third set, but looked poised in an electric stretch to clinch a 7-5 win to send things to the deciding points at No. 6 singles.
In doubles action at the top of the morning, Haverford's number one pairing of George Jiang and Stefan Johnson, the 16th ranked doubles pairing in the Atlantic South, took an 8-3 win over Grant Dill and John Nichols-Daly of Swarthmore, the fourth-ranked doubles pairing in the region, setting the tone for the marathon match with an early tally in Haverford's column.
The Garnet's second pairing of Charley Force and Rushil Patel, also a regionally ranked team at No. 13 then battled back to even the overall match score at 1-1 with an 8-6 triumph at the second doubles flight, dispatching Chow and Patrick Kley. Swarthmore's third doubles pairing of Graham Hadesman and Max Pogorelov later got the better of Justin Minerva and James McKenzie in a tiebreak, sending the Garnet into singles play up 2-1.
Two relatively quick wins put the Garnet on the brink of a clinch as Kevin Jiang dispatched Danny Loder at number three singles (6-0, 6-2) and Force squeaked past George Jiang at the top flight (7-5, 6-3) in a battle of Atlantic South stalwarts. From that point, Haverford was facing a 4-1 hole but got right back into the contest with three huge wins to turn the momentum of the match on its head.
Andreas Wingert calmly collected a 6-4, 6-4 win over Patel at number two singles, and Stefan Johnson took down Phil Rehwinkel in three sets for a win at number four (6-4, 3-6, 6-4). A large traveling contingent of Haverford fans helped fire up the squad on the court as Chow was deadlocked in a battle with Josiah Myers-Lipton. Chow grabbed a 6-4 win in the first set before Myers-Lipton found a new gear and rattled off a 6-0 win to send things to a third set.
In that third and final frame, Myers-Lipton appeared to have secured an easy clincher for the Garnet, but Chow had other plans as he rallied from 5-0 down, deftly turning away his opponent at every turn down the stretch and feeding off the charged up crowd to even things at 5-5 and eventually complete the seven-game comeback with a triumph to knot the overall match score at 4-4.
McKenzie and Noah Criss were already well into action at the sixth flight when Chow completed the comeback, as McKenzie won the first set easily but fell in the first. In the deciding third, Criss sprinted out to an early lead, but with the Haverford fans now turning their attention to the far court, McKenzie seemed to gain a second wind, fending off salvos from Criss before the Swarthmore player eventually was able to prevail by a 6-1 margin, sending his team to the narrow victory.
Under first year head coach Eric Spangler, Haverford finishes its season with a second consecutive 13-win campaign in full season action, entering the national rankings for the first time in program history. Swarthmore advances to Sunday's Centennial Conference final at top-seeded Johns Hopkins, as the Blue Jays took down Washington College in the other semifinal action on Saturday.
The Fords will now await the pending release of Centennial Conference postseason awards, which are expected to be announced next week.