{"id":86002,"date":"2024-04-22T09:18:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T13:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=86002"},"modified":"2024-04-24T08:40:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T12:40:58","slug":"toledo-defeats-western-michigan-4-1-to-claim-second-straight-mac-tournament-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/04_22_2024\/toledo-defeats-western-michigan-4-1-to-claim-second-straight-mac-tournament-crown","title":{"rendered":"Toledo Defeats Western Michigan 4-1 to Claim Second Straight MAC Tournament Crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toledo men’s tennis team used a dominating team effort to defeat\u00a0Western Michigan 4-1 in the championship match of the 2024 Mid-American Conference Tournament in front of a large home crowd at the UT Varsity Tennis Courts on Sunday afternoon to claim its second consecutive tournament crown.<\/p>\n

It was only fitting that senior\u00a0Pawit Sornlaksup\u00a0clinched match point for the Rockets in his 6-4, 6-2 victory on the No. 1 court. With the Rockets holding a 3-1 edge, Sornlaksup watched as Western Michigan’s Benjamin George’s final shot went deep, then dropped to the court in exaltation as his teammates ran on the court and swarmed him in celebration. It was a repeat of the 2023 matchup\u00a0 when\u00a0Sornlaksup scored the clinching point vs. the Broncos in a 4-3 victory.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Toledo men’s tennis team used a dominating team effort to defeat Western Michigan 4-1 in the championship match of the 2024 Mid-American Conference Tournament at the UT Varsity Tennis Courts on Sunday afternoon to claim its second consecutive tournament crown.<\/p><\/div>\n

“I’m very happy for the guys,” head coach\u00a0Al Wermer\u00a0said.\u00a0“If you’re into coaching, that’s what it’s all about, the guys you work with every day. It’s incredible.<\/p>\n

“We just kept saying that it will be a rough ride, that Western is not going to give up. We knew it was going to be a fistfight for three or four hours. We had to be resilient. We talked a lot about keep bouncing back, keep bouncing back. I think they were good listeners.”<\/p>\n

It was the second tournament title for Wermer and the ninth in program history. With the win, Toledo (14-10, 7-3) earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Championship Tournament. The Rockets will learn their first-round opponent and location when the NCAA Selection Show airs on Monday, April 29.<\/p>\n

Wermer praised Sornlaksup’s leadership\u00a0in guiding the Rockets throughout this season and his three-year career.<\/p>\n

“Pawit has been such a great leader,” Wermer added.\u00a0“His leadership skills just continued to develop. He’s very modest and humble, but he sets the tone that spreads to the rest of the team.”<\/p>\n

Unlike last season’s match which went right down to the wire, Toledo was solidly in control of the match almost from the start. The Rockets\u00a0secured the double-point and a 1-0 match lead thanks to victories by No. 3 combo of senior\u00a0Adam Kovac\u00a0and freshman\u00a0Charlie Snow\u00a0and the No.1 pairing of Sornlaksup and senior\u00a0Marko Galic.<\/p>\n

Western Michigan did tie the match 1-1 with the first singles victory of the afternoon, a two-set sweep of the No. 4 court. But freshman\u00a0Poonthong Komolpisut\u00a0put Toledo back in front with his two-setter over Matej Kajzer from the No. 5 court, and sophomore\u00a0Matias Olivero\u00a0put his team at match point after defeating Dimitri Moriarty in two sets at the bottom court.<\/p>\n

Sornlaksup and George went back and forth for the majority of the first set before Sornalskup asserted himself to take the 6-4 win. He had less trouble in the second set, finishing off George 6-2 and setting off Toledo’s celebration.<\/p>\n

At the end of the match, junior\u00a0Hanamichi Carvajal\u00a0and Sornlaksup were named to the MAC All-Tournament Team, and Sornlaksup was named MAC Tournament Most Valuable Player for the second straight season.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The No. 3 seed Toledo knocks off No. 1 seed WMU to earn a berth into the NCAA Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":886,"featured_media":86003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,56,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/886"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86005,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86002\/revisions\/86005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}