Men’s Tennis home game from April 15, 2023. Photo by Dave Walberg (He/Him)/ Beacon Athletics.
When someone thinks of the term “dual sport athlete,” a couple of names that come to mind would be the likes of Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders. Well, in case you didn’t know, UMass Boston is also home to a duo of dual sport athletes, so now you can add students Grady Friedman and Karsten Bourgoine to that list.
UMass Boston’s Men’s Tennis Team had been shorthanded for quite a while, but with the addition of some of men’s hockey’s finest, the team has started to get back into the swing of things. As a result, they have set themselves up for success in the latter portion of spring 2023.
The Beacons began the season 0–5, and had a lot of postponed matches in between (1). With their recent match against Castleton University on Tuesday, April 11, there were a lot of high hopes that the new acquisitions would make a mark on the teams’ unfortunate circumstances.
UMass Boston stopped the Spartans in their tracks, shelling them 7–2 in their matchup (2). Felix Nguyen and Patrick Ramos put on a show in their #1 doubles match, winning 8–3 against Miki Almirall and Phil Kluge. In the #2 doubles match, Maxwell Dill and Melvin Nina fought back from a 3–0 hole to come back and beat Jason Lipscomb and Connor Davis, 8–6. Friedman and Bourgoine made their debut and shined in the #3 doubles match, coming out with a bang and defeating the duo of Stanley Andersen and Andy Phelan, 8–3, putting the Beacons up 3–0 early over the Spartans.
The singles matches saw the same outcome for the most part. The Beacons mowed down the Spartans one on one, with Ramos picking up the first singles win of the day over Almirall, defeating him in two sets, 6–0 and 6–2. Nina would finish soon thereafter in the #3 singles match, taking care of Davis in two sets, 6–0 and 6–1, picking up the Beacons’ first win in the process (2).
Now up 5–0 over Castleton, the Spartans got on the board after Lipscomb defeated Nguyen in two sets with back-to-back 6–1 victories. Dill bounced back from a shaky start in the #2 singles, as he got back on his feet after losing the first set 6–1, defeating Kluge 6–4 in set two, and taking home the tiebreaker 10–4.
Friedman and Phelan went at it in the #6 singles. Friedman took care of business in two sets, defeating Phelan by scores of 6–3 and 6–1 for his first win as a member of men’s tennis. Bourgoine would succumb to Andersen in the #5 singles though; he was unable to replicate his 6–4 victory in set one, and lost the final two sets, 6–1 and 10–6 in the tiebreaker round (2). Nonetheless, the Beacons showed off their skills against the Spartans and won their first match of the season.
Now having momentum going into their match against Wheaton College April 13, the Beacons were unable to keep that same intensity and were swept by the Lyons, 9–0. A single point was scored by the Beacons in their three sets of doubles matches, with Dill and Nina losing 8–1 against Jack Luyrink and Eli Hanlon (3). The other two doubles matches were 8–0 sweeps (3), and the Beacons had a lot of work cut out for them down 3–0 before their singles matches began.
Wheaton quickly took advantage of their huge lead, securing the win after Ethan Na swept Dill 6–0 in the #2 singles, and Chris Register registered a win over Bourgoine in two sets with 6–1 and 6–0 victories in the #5 singles. Now up 5–0, Wheaton added salt to the wound when Luyrink defeated Nguyen in the #4 singles by the same score as the #5 singles.
Even Ramos couldn’t get on track in the #1 singles match, as he’d take just his second loss of the year against Josh Anschuetz, losing 7–5 in set one before being swept in set two, 6–0. Nina and Hanlon battled it out in the #3 singles, and while Nina would take the first set, 6–3, he lost set two by the same score and ultimately dropped the tiebreaker, 10–6. The Lyons would tame the Beacons with a 9–0 sweep.
Even with the recent loss to Wheaton College, men’s tennis still has a lot to look forward to with the rest of the season in sight. The additions of Bourgoine and Friedman has paid off for the Beacons since their debut, and their loss to the Lyons is no more than a bump in the road. Pretty soon, this team will figure things out and play much like they did against the Spartans. With a full team in hand, the Beacons are ready to make do with their record that they obtained shorthanded and get the best out of their newly filled roster because now, there’s no forfeiting in sight that’ll stop them from success.