AZUSA, Calif. -- The early schedule has been nothing less than brutal, with 4 of Azusa Pacific’s first 5 Golden State Athletic Conference foes currently ranked in the NAIA’s top 12, and the No. 5-ranked Cougars dropped an 8-1 decision to the conference’s only remaining unbeaten, No. 2-ranked Fresno Pacific, Thursday afternoon at the Munson and Bavougian Tennis Complex.

The match, delayed 24 hours due to Wednesday’s rain showers throughout the day, began with the singles matches in an attempt to ensure that all of the men’s and women’s singles and doubles matches could conclude before darkness set in. Today’s match was the Cougars’ last weekday afternoon start before daylight savings time kicks in this weekend.

Fresno Pacific reeled off 4 quick straight-sets victories to move within a point of clinching the dual match win, its second straight over the Cougars in Azusa. It was the Sunbirds that ended Azusa Pacific’s GSAC all-sports conference winning streak record of 58 straight wins last April at the Citrus College Tennis Courts.

In the featured No. 1 singles match, junior Matthijs Bolsius claimed the opening set before dropping the final 2 in a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 defeat. Had he been able to pull off a win, the decisive fifth team point may have had to wait until doubles play later in the afternoon, but the defeat deflated junior Ronald Chow at No. 5 singles. Chow took a lead of 2 service breaks in the third set after splitting the first 2 sets by narrow 2-game margins with Fresno Pacific’s Marco Foelz. After Foelz rallied to take a 5-4 lead, Chow held his own and broke Foelz’s serve to reclaim the lead in the set at 6-5 to serve for the match. He took a 40-0 lead for triple match point before Foelz rallied and forced a set tiebreaker, and a double fault gave Foelz the 8-6 tiebreaker win.

With the match outcome already in hand, Fresno Pacific rolled to a pair of 8-3 wins in the top 2 doubles positions, but Chow was locked into another battle with doubles partner Daniel Moore at No. 3. The pair broke serve with a 6-5 lead, then held serve for the match-clinching 8-5 victory that gave Azusa Pacific its lone team point of the dual match.

With the loss, Azusa Pacific drops to 4-4 overall, 3-2 GSAC, while Fresno Pacific holds perfect 8-0 overall and 5-0 GSAC marks. The Cougars are back in action with an 11 a.m. visit to Hope International on Saturday, March 7.

SINGLES
1. Fabio Silva (FPU) def. Matthijs Bolsius (APU); 3-6, 6-1, 6-2
2. Vicente Joli (FPU) def. Janosch Apelt (APU); 6-4, 6-4
3. Alex Gonzalez (FPU) def. Mathias Weber (APU); 6-0, 6-1
4. Maxime Adam (FPU) def. Daniel Moore (APU); 6-1, 6-2
5. Marco Foelz (FPU) def. Ronald Chow (APU); 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (6)
6. Jose Hilla (FPU) def. Danny Colten (APU); 6-2, 6-1

Order of finish: 3, 6, 4, 2, 1*, 5
(*=clinching match)

DOUBLES
1. Gonzalez/Joli (FPU) def. Bolsius/Weber (APU); 8-3
2. Adam/Nicolas Ernst (FPU) def. Apelt/Zapala (APU); 8-3
3. Chow/Moore (APU) def. James Harris/Hilla (FPU); 8-5

Order of finish: 1, 2, 3