SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Azusa Pacific finds itself in familiar territory, reaching the Pacific West Conference tournament championship match with Hawai`i Pacific standing in the Cougars' way for the third year in a row, following a 5-1 win over Concordia in the conference semifinals on Friday afternoon.
Match Results
The No. 2-seeded Cougars fought through windy conditions to defeat the No. 6 Eagles exactly a week after having their last match cancelled due to rain, taking two out of three doubles matches and then winning the first three completed singles matches.
Jan Meyer was one game away from completing his match in the previous round when the Cougars clinched, and the same nearly happened to the Cougar senior when Christian Schmid had multiple match points when Meyer led 5-2 in the second set. However, the Cougar No. 1 reached the finish line first with a 7-5, 6-3 victory to clinch the 5-1 win.
"It was difficult to play in these windy conditions," Meyer said. "There was a lot of dust in the air and I personally had some issues with my contact lenses. He went ahead 5-3 in the first set, but I was telling myself that it was only one break and in the windy conditions it was hard for both of us to hold serve, so I just kept fighting."
The win boosts Meyer's career singles record to 82-6, which surpasses Adam Davidson's 81 singles victories and ties Tom Jelsma for the second most singles wins in program history. Meyer's win percentage of 93.2% also ranks second right behind Sam Fletcher who finished with 104 wins and a win percentage of 93.7%.
Meyer paired with freshman Olger van Gent for Azusa Pacific's first point of the day, winning 8-2 at No. 1 doubles. Meyer now has 77 career doubles victories, giving Meyer 159 total career victories passing current Azusa Pacific women's tennis head coach David Goodman for fifth most in program history.
Schmid and Shepherd Newcomb won at No. 3 doubles 8-1 to give the Cougars a 2-0 lead, but the Eagles won the final doubles point to avoid the sweep.
Van Gent needed only 12 games to race through his victory at No. 5 singles, winning 6-0, 6-0. Moments later, Newcomb won his singles match 6-1, 6-1. Alan Leahy won his first set 6-4 and was on serve in the second set at 4-4 when the match concluded. Pascal Engel had just forced a third set after dropping the first set 4-6, coming back with a 6-1 win in the second set.
"Getting to the finals was our first goal," Meyer said after the match. "Now we can go out there and be relaxed and play with no pressure. We're going to just treat it like any other match. Our first priority was to secure a playoff spot, so now that we reached the final, we can have some fun out there."
On Saturday, the Cougars will face Hawai`i Pacific for the second time this season. The Sharks defeated the Cougars in Azusa 8-1 in the first meeting of the two top seeds in the conference. Azusa Pacific is looking for its first win over the top seed since 2012.
