[Men's Tennis] Hawks Advance to Round Two of NAIA Championships with Win Over Cardinal Stritch

MOBILE, Alabama – The #14 seed San Diego Christian College Hawks have advanced out of the first round of the 2022 NAIA Men's Tennis Championships by defeating the #19 seed Cardinal Stritch University Wolves in a match that took nearly four hours.

The Hawks took down the opening doubles point to gain the early momentum against the Wolves. The fearsome duo of Chris Papa and Nick Nienhaus cruised to a 6-2 win against the number one team from Stritch. SDCC's Julius Kaufmann and Angel Herreros sealed the point shortly after with a 6-2 victory of their own.

The No. 1 ranked singles player in the country, Hawk Chris Papa, made quick work of his Wolf counterpart, Andrin Zuellig, winning 6-0, 6-1 to keep the ball rolling. SDCC's Nienhaus, the No. 15 ranked player, followed suit with a quick dismantling of CSU's Samual Kaplan 6-0, 6-4 to go up by three.

Cardinal Stritch would earn their first point winning in the six slot in straight sets, but the other three matches would be epic battles. After falling in the first set, San Diego Christian's Julius Kaufmann would claim the second set only to lose in a tiebreak in the third. With the score now 3-2, slightly in favor of the Hawks, it was going to take a comeback by either Robin Van den Hoek or Luis Hochenauer, who both lost their opening set, to secure the match for SDCC.

Both Hawks would claim second-set victories to even their matches up, but Van den Hoek would be the one who sent SDCC through to the next round. His 0-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Mugo Munoz, sent the Hawks into celebration mode, claiming a 4-2 team win to send them on to the next round.

UP NEXT
San Diego Christian will take on the #3 ranked Keiser University Seahawks (FL) in the second round of the NAIA Championships on Wednesday, May 18 at the Mobile Tennis Center. The match will begin at 7 am Pacific time. Check back to sdcchawks.com for updates.