ANNAPOLIS, Md. –– Members of the Navy men's tennis team placed first in six round-robin groupings during the Joe Hunt Invitational that concluded Sunday in Annapolis.
Navy welcomed players from 13 schools from around the Mid-Atlantic Region to the three-day event that is in its fifth season honoring Naval Academy graduate Joe Hunt.
Doubles teams to win groupings were the Navy pairings of
Romesh Kahatapitiya (Jr., Virginia Beach, Va.) and
Sam Vagner (So., Staten Island, N.Y.) in the blue flight and
Jack Dabek (So., Dublin, Ohio) and
Jake Fishkin (So., Baltimore, Md.) in the red flight. The Kahatapitiya and Vagner duo went undefeated in its three round-robin matches before losing its playoff match. Conversely, the team of Dabek and Fishkin posted a 2-1 record during round-robin play and won its playoff contest.
Kahatapitiya also won his purple flight singles grouping with a 3-0 record. He went on to win his playoff match. Also winning a purple flight singles grouping was
Matthew Lee (Sr., San Diego, Calif.). He too won all three of his round-robin matches and recorded a victory in his playoff match.
Joining Kahatapitiya and Lee in winning a singles grouping with a 3-0 record was
Peter Lohrbach (Jr., Little Neck, N.Y.) in the green flight. He matched Kahatapitiya and Lee in winning his playoff match.
Rounding out the list of Navy group winners was
Christian Pumpelly (Fr., Atlanta, Ga.). He tallied a 2-1 record against his green grouping and also won his playoff match.
"It was a great event for the team this weekend with Matthew, Peter, Romesh and Christian winning their flights," said Navy head coach
Chris Garner. "It was encouraging to see the team competing against a number of terrific opponents throughout the weekend. We definitely can take a lot of positives away from the tournament while also seeing areas we will improve on over the fall."
Also competing in a tournament this weekend was
Andrew Ton (Jr., Milpitas, Calif.), who took part in the Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu, Calif. The event brings together the top returning player from every Division I conference. Ton was competing in the event for the second year in a row.
He began the 32-player singles draw by losing a 6-4, 6-0 decision to the tournament's No. 7 seed, Sumit Sarker from Rice. Ton then won a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over UNC Wilmington's Daniel Groom in the first round of the 16-player consolation draw. He would lose in the next round, the quarterfinals, dropping a 6-2, 6-2 match to Mercer's Olivier Stuart.
Ton and Army's Ana Joyner, the Patriot League women's representative combined for a 6-4 loss to Juan Carlos Aguilar from Texas A&M and Katarina Jokic from Georgia in the first round of the mixed doubles competition.
Navy will be back in action the weekend of Oct. 11-13 when it both plays host to another invitational and sends a contingent to the River City Open in Richmond, Va.
