NEW YORK -- The No. 17 Columbia men's tennis team secured its seventh doubles point in eighth matches en route to defeating No. 63 Penn State at LifeTime Westchester. The No. 29 nationally-ranked doubles team of first-year
Max Westphal and sophomore
Theo Winegar defeated Penn State's top team, Malik Bhatnagar and Alexander Karman, 6-3. Teammates
Roko Horvat and
Alex Kotzen secured the doubles point from the third spot, conquering Miko Eala and Sam Bossem, 6-3.
Westphal's momentum carried into the singles competition as he defeated Bora Sengul from the third spot. The straight set (6-1, 6-3) victory moved the Lions to 2-0 on the afternoon. Horvat extended the Lions' lead to 3-0, decisively defeating Bossem 6-2, 6-1. Earning a third consecutive straight set victory, sophomore
Henry Ruger took down Loren Byers (6-4, 6-4) from fourth spot.
Penn State countered from the sixth spot as Charl Morgan secured a hard-fought victory over rookie
Jayden Templeman. After ceding the first set 2-6, Templeman leveled the match with a 7-6 second set victory. Morgan went on to collect the win 1-0 in the third set.
From the top spot, No. 7
Alex Kotzen expanded Columbia's lead to 5-1, defeating the Nittany Lions' top player, Malik Bhatnagar. After quickly collecting the first set, 6-0, Bhatnagar countered to win a tightly contested second set 6-7. Kotzen secured the victory in the third set, 10-6.
No. 96
Hugo Hashimoto fell to Eala in the final match of the evening (2-6, 6-7), finalizing the overall match result at 5-2.
Columbia travels to Evanston, Illinois next Saturday for a 1:00 P.M. matchup against No. 12 Northwestern.
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