In a match that may end up implicating future playoff seeding the College of Staten Island men’s tennis squad were narrowly defeated by John Jay College by a 5-4 count as part of CUNYAC play at the Wayne Indoor Tennis Courts in Wayne, NJ.  The loss dipped the Dolphins to 5-7 overall and 3-3 in conference play, while the Bloodhounds improved to 4-9, 4-3, respectively, advancing over CSI in the current standings.

The decisive point would come in the last set of the match, but before that, John Jay was able to take two out of three doubles flights to take an early edge.  In the top spot, John Jay was able to secure an 8-1 win with Richard Mills and Oscar Wu, but CSI countered with an 8-6 win by Andrew Adia and Brandon Nickel outshining JJC’s Maksim Gorelov and Mohammed Ahmed.

At the No. 3 doubles flight, John Jay had a big 6-1 lead with Carlos Negron and Jowel Ahmed holding court over CSI’s Mohamed El Sayed and Also Rodriguez.  Unfortunately, CSI was forced to retire as the heat was starting to weather the CSI pair.

So, with JJC up 2-1, they needed to only split singles to take the match and that they did.  The Bloodhounds took two wins at the bottom of the order with CSI countered with big wins by Adia at No. 2, 6-0, 6-0; Matthew Vesci at No. 3 (6-3, 6-0), and Mitchel Voloshin at No. 4 (6-2, 6-1).  That left all eyes on court 1 for the deciding match with the score tied at 4-4.

Due to lateness on the part of CSI No. 1 singles player Chris Pinto, he was forced to concede three points and started 3-0 down to JJC’s Mills.  The two began play and both would take three games, but with the large early lead, Mills won the set, 6-3.  The two went back-and-forth in the second set, but again, Mills was just ahead, scoring a 7-5 win to take the match in straight sets.

The win put JJC over CSI in the CUNYAC standings by one game in the win column.  The top seven teams make the playoffs in tennis, with the top seed earning a first round bye.  Currently, CSI sits in the No. 4 position.

The Dolphins are back in action tomorrow when they host York College in their final CUNYAC match of the season.  A win would insure them of a first round home playoff game and no less than a No. 4 seed in the tournament.  Match time is 4pm.