On Sunday April 23, the Lawrence’s man tennis team (5-3 Midwest Conference) successfully seized fourth place in the Midwest Conference after two games with Ripon College (0-8 MWC) and Lake Forest College (6-2 MWC). The Vikings made a clean 9-0 victory against Ripon College to earn third place. Even a 4-5 loss against Lake Forest College later could not stop the Vikings when they ended the normal season in fourth place–which guaranteed a spot in the Midwest Conference Tournament at the end of April.
Before the match against Ripon, the Vikings needed a win to finalize their spot in the tournament, and they answered with an outstanding performance to win all nine matches on Sunday morning. Starting with the three doubles matches, the team of senior David Jumes and junior Bill Schuman-Kline continued their dominance by winning 8-1 against the team of Lincoln Wurtz and Ben Ernatinger. Freshman Connor Maloney played really well aside sophomore David Brooker and finished the match with a clean score of 8-0. For the third match, the freshman duo of Cade Francour and Andrea Arrivela did not take long to win 8-2 against Junmo Kwon and Omari Chenault from the Red Hawks.
For the singles competition, Lawrence did not drop a set in winning the six singles matches. The team captain, senior David Jumes defeated Lincoln Wurtz from Ripon College in the first match without losing a game (6-0, 6-0). His partner in the double competition, Bill Schuman-Kline won the second match with only one loss. Freshman Connor Maloney continued his winning streak by defeating Junmo Kwon 6-3,6-2. Freshmen Yang Zhao and Andrea Arrivela were the two who finished the 9-0 win with the score 6-1, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-2 consecutively. With this win the Vikings pushed their league record to 5-2 and placed third in the four team MWC tournament for the second consecutive season. Lawrence also continued the winning streak against Ripon to number 10. This was a really bright result for the Viking’s tennis team since four winners in the singles competition were all freshmen and they could improve more in the future.
Later in the day, the team had to face Lake Forest College (5-2 MWC), who had the same standing as the Vikings in the MWC standings. Therefore, whoever won this match would seize third place and avoid facing Grinnell College (8-0 MWC) in the tournament. Although the Vikings won the doubles competitions 2-1, the strong individual skill from Lake Forest helped the Foresters defeat Lawrence 5-4. Starting with the Doubles competition, the duo of David Jumes and Bill Schuman-Kline took 17 games and a tiebreak to defeat Trevor Allen and Ellis Lora-Arceo 9-8 (7-0). Freshman Aidan Delgado and Cade Francour gave Lawrence another win with their score of 8-4. In the singles competition, captain David Jumes tied the Viking’s career wins’ record with the 60 wins – the same as the former Midwest Conference champion Ryan Dunn. David Jumes defeated Trevor Allen 6-7 6-3 and 6-3 at No.1 singles and Cade Francour picked up the other singles win for the Vikings with a 6-2, 6-2 against Nick Rehm from the Foresters. Lake Forest won another four singles matches to win 5-4 overall. This loss did not mean much for the Vikings since they had already gotten into the tournament.
With fourth place, the Vikings finally got into the Midwest Conference in two consecutive years. Although Grinnell College and Cornell College are all really strong opponents, it is still possible for the Vikings to win if they try their best in the upcoming tournament during April 29-30. This is the last year senior David Jumes has at Lawrence. He is the standout player of the team and without him it will be harder for the Vikings next season. Jumes did say that the team would play their best tennis if they got in the tournament, so best of luck for the Vikings!
