The Justice

Media Credit: David Sheppard-Brick Rookie Sarah Richman '12 hits a backhand during a match against Bentley College last Wednesday.

Behind 7-6 with their opponents serving for fifth place in the No. 2 doubles flight last Saturday at the Northeast Intercollegiate Tournament, men's tennis players Steven Nieman '11 and Mike Tatarsky '12 were running out of chances to win the match.

But they broke Bucknell College's senior Daniel Bednarek and rookie Clark Bogle to tie the score and stay in the match. One hold and one more break later, Nieman and Tatarsky had closed out the match en route to a 9-7 win and a fifth-place finish out of the 16 teams in their bracket.

"[Coach Ben Lamanna] always tells us, 'A late show's a great show,'" Nieman said. "That's one of his major slogans, meaning that when the going gets tough, when people get tight, when it gets very, very close and late in the match, you have to be the one to really execute. We did that."

The men's team also defeated Bentley College 8-1 last Tuesday in its first match of the season. A day later, the women's team also defeated Bentley, winning 5-4.

Nieman and Tatarsky were one of two Brandeis doubles pairs to pull out a fifth-place finish at last weekend's tournament, which took place last Friday through Sunday at Brown University. Simon Miller '11 and captain Scott Schulman '09 also captured fifth place in the No. 1 doubles flight, defeating Brown juniors Nathaniel Gorham and rookie Andrew Yazmer 8-5 in the fifth-place match.

Lamanna praised his team's mental attitude against their Division I competition.

"I was really proud of the guys over the weekend, how they acted. In terms of dealing with the ups and downs and dealing with the adversity mentally, I thought we did a really good job," he said.

In singles, Nieman, Schulman, Tatarsky, and David Silver '11 all won their first-round matches before falling in the quarterfinal round. Nieman and Schulman both won the first sets of their quarterfinal matches in the No. 2 and No. 3 singles flights, respectively, before dropping the final two sets. Tatarsky fell in two sets in the No. 3 singles flight to Fairleigh Dickinson University sophomore Alex Jorne, while Silver lost in the No. 6 singles flight to FDU's rookie Stephan Muller.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools