Cal Poly Men’s Tennis extended its winning streak to nine games after shutting out UC Riverside 4-0 on Sunday, April 18 at Mustang Tennis Complex for its last regular season game before heading into the Big West Conference Tournament.
With the victory, the Mustangs finished with a perfect 6-0 conference record for the first time since 2012 and with an overall record of 13-7.
The Mustangs clinched the Big West regular season title on Saturday, April 17 with a 4-3 win over UC Santa Barbara and guaranteed an automatic spot in the semifinals of the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed.
Graduating seniors Antoine Noel, Alex Stater, Andrew Whitehouse, and Roman Shenkiryk were recognized during the final home game of the season, also known as Senior Day.
Cal Poly started the afternoon by taking the doubles point early on. The Mustangs’ duo of redshirt freshman Joe Leather and Shenkiryk calmly took down UC Riverside’s pair of Gilbert Chung and Nolan McCaig 6-2 on court No. 1.
In a tougher contested matchup on the No. 3 court, Cal Poly’s pair of Stater and redshirt sophomore Gary Vardanyan clinched the doubles point after defeating Jayson Blando and Michael Blando 6-4.
The Mustangs carried their success into singles play after Vardanyan impressively dominated both of his sets 6-0 at the No. 6 spot to put Cal Poly ahead at 2-0.
At the No. 5 spot, redshirt freshman Fernando Fonseca continued Cal Poly’s momentum by winning consecutive sets 6-1 to further extend the Mustangs’ lead.
Leather secured the victory for the Mustangs at the No. 4 spot in a back-and-forth 7-5 first set and a dominant 6-0 second set to complete the 4-0 sweep.
Cal Poly will look to advance to the Big West Conference Tournament finals taking place at the end of the month in Irvine, California.