KALAMAZOO, Mich. --- Five Wabash freshman represented the Little Giant tennis team extremely well at the fall Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Regional over the weekend at Kalamazoo College.
William Pelak (left) picked up three victories to advance to the round of 16 in the open division. The McLean, Virginia native defeated Calvin's Steve DeMaagd in the opening round 6-4, 6-2, then followed with a three-set victory over fourth-seeded Josh Williams of Wheaton (6-3, 2-6, 1-0 (7)). A straight-sets win over Steve Salterelli of the University of Chicago (6-4, 6-3) put Pelak in the final 16 against Trevis Bowman of Washington University of St. Louis. Bowman won the match 6-1, 6-3.
Luke Bielawski won his first two matches, including a straight-sets victory over the eighth-seeded Danny Levy from Washington University (7-6 (5), 6-2). After an opening match win against Oberlin's David Midler (6-1, 6-4) and the win over Levy, Bielawski faced DePauw's Scott Sauer, losing 6-2, 6-4.
Bielawski (right) and Pelak combined for three victories in open doubles action. The pair started with an 8-6 win against Chris Doehner and Ryan Paul from Ohio Northern. An 8-2 victory over Baldwin-Wallace's Tyler Adams and Matt Lachman sent the duo to the third round and a 9-8 (6) win over DePauw's Ryan Dodd and Cameron Huffman. Bielawski and Pelak lost in the quarterfinals 8-6 to Lado Bakhustshivili and Saterelli.
Ryan Tennyson, Ricky Ritter, and Luke Robbins all competed in the "B" pairings in the tournament. Tennyson won in straight sets against Tom Page from Oberlin (6-1, 6-4) and Orlo Yeagley from Adrian (6-1, 6-1) before falling to eight-seeded Tom Cafemeyer in three sets (3-6, 7-5, 2-6). Ritter defeated Elmhurst's Ryan Applegate 6-1, 6-5 in the opening round of singles play before losing to fifth-seeded Paul Namkoong from Chicago.
Tennyson and Robbins scored an 8-2 victory in doubles action over Kenyon's Nick Sprague and Dan Verhave. Namkoong and Alex Winney took a 9-7 win over the pair in the next round.
"I knew that we had a chance to upset some people at this tournament, but I didn't know that these freshmen would play as well as they did," head tennis coach Jason Hutchison said. "It is extremely hard to get them prepared for a tournament like this during the fall when I do not practice with them everyday. They stepped up and played like veterans. Even the matches that they lost could have been wins with a little more experience.
"The guys are little down, which I like to see, but they are ready to work hard in the off season and get prepared for our tough spring season. We definitely had a lot of coaches and players in the region taking notice of our players. We will be a scary team to play this spring."