They were down, officially beaten, and yet the UB men's tennis team kept on playing. The match had been going on for more than four hours, the spectators had left, and it was well after the Final Four tip-off.
Finally, the Toledo coach told his final player to default, ending the match. The Rockets (6-11, 1-1 MAC) won, beating Buffalo (11-11, 1-4 MAC) by a score of 5-2 at the Village Glen in Williamsville on Saturday.
"Toledo always has a very solid program, we knew what we were going into ... we knew they have a pretty solid one-two punch," said Bulls' head coach Russ Crispell.
Bulls' sophomore Randy Rocchio accomplished the hardest fought win of the afternoon, defeating Dipesh Rao at second singles 7-6 (2), 5-7, 10-4 in double tiebreakers. It was his second MAC singles win, the first coming a few weeks ago against Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. UB is likely to face Toledo in the first round of the conference tournament on April 25 in DeKalb, Ill.
"I was pretty tired, but coach just told me to lead the team off to conference championships, and I just figured I'd put everything I had into the match," said Rocchio.
Buffalo got off to a slow start, losing all three doubles matches. On the first court, Toledo's Khalid Al Nabhani and Tony Tran bested the Bulls' team of Rocchio and sophomore Nick Zieziula 8-5. At second doubles, Fery Kasiman, UB's lone senior, teamed up with sophomore Rohan Raikar and was defeated by the Rocket's Freddy Gomez and Dipesh Rao 8-4.
The third doubles match started out favorably for Buffalo, as the team of sophomore Josh Liederman and junior Rannga Prayudha were up five games to two at one point. Toledo's third pair, Mirsad Begic and Todd Wojtkowski, however, mounted a comeback and eventually defeated the Bulls in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (7).
"We were on the edge," said Crispell. "We came close. We just couldn't pull it off. It's nice to win the battle, but the war will be during Conference championships."
The only other victory for UB was at fifth singles. Rannga Prayudha won the first set against the Rocket's Freddy Gomez 7-5. He was on his way to overwhelming Gomez, when his coach ended the match at a score of 3-0.
The deciding factor in the match was the four singles losses for Buffalo. At first singles, Kasiman lost to Toledo's Al Nabhani 6-1, 6-3. The Bulls were handed defeats at numbers three and four singles as well. Wojtkowski again bested Liederman 6-2, 6-1 at number three.
"The difference, at least in my first set, was my first serve percentage," said Liederman. "I didn't get enough first serves in."
"In my second set I started to get a little tired out there, I started missing just a few too many shots," he said.
Zieziula won his first set 6-3, but eventually lost to Tony Tran of Toledo, going 3-6 in the next set and 6-10 in the tiebreaker. Finally, at sixth singles, Buffalo junior Ivan Chamdani lost to Begic of the Rockets 6-2, 6-0.
"We had so many close matches; we just couldn't come up with them," said Rocchio. "When it counts, hopefully we can come up with the win."
The match against Toledo marks the last home MAC meet for UB. A short ceremony took place before it started, to honor Fery Kasiman, the Bulls' only senior. Crispell announced Kasiman would be staying around in the future to help out with the team.
"It's been a fun four years, but maybe it's my time to graduate now," said Kasiman. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss it, especially the guys on the team. Everybody has become really close. It has been a great experience for me."
UB men's tennis is in action next at 3 p.m. April 9 against Canisius at the UB Tennis Center, located at the Ellicott Courts.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
