This past weekend, the men’s tennis team traveled to Hartford, Conn. for a matchup against Trinity College. They started by playing three doubles matches, all of which were won by Trinity. In the first doubles match, Tom Kimball ’12 and Jack Bryant ’14 lost to Anson McCook and Ned Mandell, 8-0. The teams of Jason Ottomano ’14/Luke Martin ’14 and Robert Yee ’12/Sam Bachelder ’14 both lost their doubles matches 8-1 to the teams of Charles McConnell/Kayong Lee and Dill Ayres/Musyoka Mbithi, respectively.

The singles matches were next, with Bryant winning the only match for the Mules, while Trinity took the other five. McCook defeated Kimball in two sets, 6-1, 6-1, and Lee defeated Ottomano in two sets as well, 6-0, 6-4. At third singles match, Bryant lost the first set to McConnell 5-7, but was able to win the next two 6-4 and 10-5 to take the match. Mandell defeated Bachelder at fourth singles, 6-3, 6-0, Matthew Mantikas ’13 lost to Mbithi, 7-5, 6-0, and Martin lost to Carpenter, 6-0, 6-1.

Overall, it was a disappointing result for the Mules, but they still have a respectable record at 5-3 due to their victories in Orlando, Fla. over spring break. During their trip, the Mules played six matches. In their first match on March 19, the Mules faced Elmhurst College, whom they defeated 7-2. Ottomano and Martin won their doubles match, as did Bachelder and Yee. The Mules also won five of the six singles matches, with Kimball, Bryant, Bachelder, Mantikas and Martin all notching wins. Later that day, the Mules took on the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), who defeated them 7-2. FIT won all the doubles matches, but Ottomano and Bachelder were able to win their singles matches for the Mules.

The next day, the Mules again had two matches, first against North Central College and then against Birmingham Southern College. They easily defeated North Central College 9-0, but the match against Birmingham was much closer. The teams of Kimball/Bryant and Yee/Bachelder took their doubles matches, and Kimball, Bryant, Bachelder and Mantikas won their singles matches to earn a 6-3 victory for the Mules.

On March 21, the Mules faced Oglethorpe University, again winning every match to sweep their opponent 9-0. Their final match was against Pacific University from Oregon, which the men also won 8-1. In the first doubles match, Bryant and Kimball lost to Zuroske and Battaglia of Pacific, but Ottomano/Martin and Bachelder/Yee won their matches, as did all of Colby’s singles players. The victory brought them to a record of 5-1 overall on the trip, an impressive showing for the Mules. The results from the trip show that the men had much better results when they were well rested than when they had to play two matches in one day. By next weekend, the Mules will have had time to recover from spring training before taking on Wesleyan University at home on Saturday at 1 p.m.