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Date: October 9, 2005
Contact: Bill Sodoma

 

Crane, Gildersleeve win titles at Wallach Invitational

LEWISTON, Maine --- Colby College men's tennis players Ben Crane (Edina, Minn.) and Tom Gildersleeve (Lexington, Mass.) each won titles at the Wallach Invitational at Bates College on Saturday and Sunday.

Crane won the 'B' singles title and Gildersleeve was champion in the 'D' singles flight. Colby's Bryan Brown (Bangor, Maine) took a set from nationally ranked and eventual 'A' singles champion Will Boe-Wiegaard of Bates College.

Crane took a hard-fought 4-6, 6-4, (10-8) victory over Sean McCooey of Tufts University in the 'B' championship final. Crane had tough matches from the opening round to the title match. He started the tourney off with a 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory over Josh Feinberg of Bates in the opening round. Crane then notched a 7-6 (4), 6-4 win against Bowdoin's Alex Coughron in a quarterfinal match and held on for a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (6) win over Amherst's Tal Avrahami in the semifinals.

Gildersleeve also had difficult final with a 3-6, 6-3, (10-5) win against Bowdoin's Andrew Fried in the 'D' title match. After a bye in the opening round, Gildersleeve won 7-5, 6-2 over Amherst's Caleb Rosewenc in a quarterfinal match and then cruised to a 6-1, 6-3 victory against Geof Loh of Tufts in a semifinal match.

Brown, a first-year player, opened play with a 6-2, 6-2 win against Scott Schulman of Brandeis in the 'A' singles competition. Boe-Wiegaard finished last year ranked second in all of Division III, but Brown took a 6-4 win in the first set. Boe-Wiegaard won 6-2 in the second set and then won the pro-set tiebreaker by a 10-6 score.

Colby's Zach Schuman (Watchung, N.J.) also won his first match in the 'A' flight with a 6-4, 6-1 win against Paul Roberts of Tufts. Schuman then fell 6-1, 6-0 to Bates' Tristan Beach.

The Mules' Tim Fuhriman won 7-5, 6-0 in his opening round match against Southern Maine's Mike Burke, but then lost 6-2, 6-0 to Zack Lerner in a 'B' singles quarterfinal.

Griffin Richards won one and lost one in the 'D' singles for Colby. Richards took a 6-2, 6-1 win against James Liddell of Bates before falling 6-1, 6-1 to Fried of Bowdoin.

Schuman and Brown made the semifinals of the 'A' doubles flight. After an easy opening round win over a Southern Maine team, Schuman and Brown won 9-7 over a Tufts squad. The Colby pair finally lost in a tough 9-8 (1) match to an Amherst team.