FINAL RESULTS

WESTERVILLE, Ohio – It was a very important day on campus for the Otterbein men's tennis team, which answered the challenge in resounding fashion with a critical 7-2 victory against league rival Ohio Northern on a beautiful day outside.

The Cardinals and Polar Bears both entered unscathed within the league, but it was the home side that made a statement by sweeping the doubles section and carrying that momentum through individual courts.

As a result, Otterbein improves to 11-4 overall and 3-0 against the Ohio Athletic Conference, taking a stranglehold on the league standings with a few matches left in the regular season. ONU drops to 8-7 this year as a whole.

The top-two doubles lines were very competitive, but the tandems of Brandon Wall/Jamie Price along with Joshua Mammen/Jake McDivitt both manufactured 8-5 victories. Will Newberry and Dylan Shook had a little easier time on the third court, pulling away for an 8-2 outcome.

Wall (6-2, 6-1) cruised over Tristan Munteanu at No. 1 singles while McDivitt did much of the same in a 6-3, 6-0 decision midway through the lineup.

Mammen and Newberry both had to trade more points than their teammates to earn victories, but did just that. Mammen prevailed 7-5, 6-3 before Newberry went the distance to a third-set breaker. He rallied after a 4-6 loss in the opener to stamp a 6-2 win, and then emerged (10-7) in the extra points.

Price, no stranger to marathon slugfests, also went to the wire before dropping a tough 10-7 breaker on his fourth court. He previously traded 6-2 outcomes to begin his day.

Boban Mihajlov came up a little short to round out the Cardinal lineup, succumbing by 6-3, 6-3 counts.

Otterbein has now taken four of the last six meetings in the recent series history against Ohio Northern, who previously topped John Carroll and Marietta in league competition.

The Cardinals will host Baldwin Wallace this weekend before getting a full week off to regroup. Start time from the campus courts is slated for Saturday at 1 p.m.