GREENCASTLE, Ind. --In a rematch of last season's North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Tournament Championship, the Kenyon College men's tennis team went toe-to-toe with top-seeded Denison University. The No. 17-ranked Owls, the tournament's second seed, gave the No. 14-ranked Big Red all they could handle, but Denison orchestrated three three-set comebacks to claim the 2023 conference crown.
The Owls began their run at the NCAC title with a strong doubles showing. After dropping all three doubles matches in the regular-season meeting against the Big Red, Kenyon claimed two bouts and narrowly missed completing a clean sweep.
Eliezer Gonzalez and Paulo Pocasangre Kreling, the Owls' top duo, won 8-5 to give Kenyon an early 1-0 lead, and the No. 3 pairing of Rishil Kondapaneni and Luis Andres Platas followed suit with a matching 8-5 win that doubled the Owls' advantage. Thomas Kallarakal and Eric Zhang nearly made it three for three, but the No. 2 team fell 8-7 (7-5) in a hard-fought battle against Denison's Jack Bulger and Colin Gramley.
The Big Red evened the scoring at 2-2 when Ethan Green ousted Kenyon's Rakkan Audeh 6-1, 6-1 in the No. 4 singles match. However, the result marked the only singles clash that failed to go three sets as the competition heated up, and the teams were neck-and-neck in pursuit of the Championship.
The tournament's top seed took a 3-2 lead when Pocasangre Kreling fell in the No. 5 bout. The first-year won the first set 6-4, but Denison's Andreas Chapides won 6-3 and 6-1 in the second and third sets to clinch the match. Another three-set comeback helped the Big Red pull within one point of clinching the conference crown. Platas won 7-6 (7-4) in the first set of the No. 3 match, but Denison's Andy Mackler bounced back to win 6-4, 6-3 in sets two and three.
Despite the deficit, the Owls kept battling and went blow-for-blow with their rivals. Kondapaneni kept Kenyon alive by winning the top singles duel. The sophomore completed his own comeback, winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 against Bulger to cut the score to 4-3.
Zhang was on the verge of winning the No. 6 match, and Kallarakal was leading in the No. 2 bout, but Denison clinched the dual with a tiebreak win. Zhang took an early lead in the No. 6 match with a 6-3 set-one win, but a 6-4 loss in set two brought about a third set. Zhang and the Big Red's Zachary Portnoy were deadlocked 6-6 in the deciding set, but Portnoy prevailed 10-8 in the tiebreaker to clinch a 5-3 Championship win for Denison.
