WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- After winning the singles title earlier in the day, Whitman College sophomore Matt Solomon teamed with Missionary freshman Etienne Moshevich to capture the doubles crown Sunday afternoon as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Pacific Northwest Regional Championships came to a close in McMinnville, Ore.
In an all-Whitman conclusion to an all-Whitman day, Solomon and Moshevich eked out a 9-8 victory over a second Missionary team, sophomores Nadeem Kassam and Jake Cappel. Solomon and Moshevich won the deciding last game by a 7-4 score.
"It was a great match -- about as close as it could be," Whitman coach Jeff Northam said. "It was close from start to finish."
Earlier on Sunday, Solomon scrambled past two of his teammates to capture the ITA’s regional singles title. He was one of four Missionaries who found themselves battling one another in the morning semifinals. Solomon beat Moshevich 6-7 (8-6), 6-2, 7-5 in one semifinal, and then dispatched freshman Chris Bailey 7-5, 6-2 to win the singles crown. Bailey had advanced to the finals with a 1-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 semifinal comeback over Cappel.
Each of the two semifinal matches took more than three hours to complete.
As the PNW regional champs, Solomon and Moshevich will travel to Mobile, Ala., in October for the NCAA Div. III portion of the ITA's Small College Championships.
Solomon will play two matches on Wednesday, Oct. 10, first in singles and then with Moshevich in doubles. Both matches will be against winners of the Southwest regional, which takes place next weekend in Abilene, Texas. Winners of those two matches will continue to play that week against other regional winners from around the country.
A year ago as freshmen, Solomon and Kassam won the Northwest doubles title and then dropped a close decision to the Southwest regional winners. Whitman's Phalkun Mam, who graduated last spring, won last fall's singles title, beat the Southwest champion and then finished fifth in the Small College Championships.
While Whitman swept the regional singles and doubles for a second consecutive year, it dominated this weekend's competition to a far greater extent than a year ago. All 12 Whitman entries in singles advanced to the Round of 16, and seven of the eight quarterfinal slots were filled by Missionaries. All four semifinalists in singles were Whitman players.
"We were truly blessed this weekend," Northam said. "What a great few days this has been for Whitman tennis."
Northam expected to see his team do well in the tournament, but he was just a little stunned to see the Missionaries corner the market on Sunday's finals in both singles and doubles.
"There was no way to predict that we would do this well," he said. “At the same time, our guys have been working very hard. After we lost the conference title to Pacific Lutheran last spring, they decided to work harder than ever in practice and with their conditioning. It's great to see all of their hard work pay off."
The Whitman players who advanced to the Round of 16 in singles, in addition to Solomon, Moshevich, Cappel, Kassam and Bailey, were senior Robert Rye, juniors Christoph Fuchs and Justin Hayashi, sophomores Dan Wilson, Jasper Follows and David Deming, and freshman Quin Miller.
Deming and Wilson also joined Solomon-Moshevich and Kassam-Cappel in the doubles quarterfinals.
The ITA’s Pacific Northwest regional, hosted by Linfield College, began Friday and continued through Saturday and Sunday. For Whitman’s day-by-day results, please click here.