BEACON FALLS, Conn. -- For the fourth time this season, Post University Men's Tennis met up with Chestnut Hill College, but this time the season was on the line for both teams in the CACC Tournament Semifinals. Having gone 2-1 in the regular season against the Griffins and earning their first home playoff match in program history, the Eagles looked to do it again this time in Beacon Falls, Connecticut at Woodland Regional High School on Saturday afternoon.

But in the biggest match of both teams' seasons, it was the three-seeded Griffins who came out on top over the two-seeded Eagles, being the first to reach four team points for the 4-2 win which advanced them to the CACC Championship Game against top-seeded Jefferson University next week.

THE BASICS

Post University 2, Chestnut Hill College 4

Post University (5-12)

Chestnut Hill College (10-8-1)
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Yet again taking the Doubles point would be Chestnut Hill as sophomore Tiago Lima and sophomore Joao Sousa started things off with a 6-1 win in the #3 Doubles with a dominant 6-1 victory over sophomore Tobias Strauss and sophomore Ivan Kolchanov. But the #2 Doubles would belong to the Eagles as senior Anton Andersson and sophomore Josh Cronje were 6-2 winners over sophomore Siddharth Malik and junior Pedro Vicente, forcing the deciding match to be the #1 Doubles.

With graduate student Gustavo Kerber and junior Dante Despontin facing senior Noah Cutting and sophomore Antonio Franquis, it was the Griffins getting the better of the opposition in that dual with a 6-2 win to clinch the Doubles point for Chestnut Hill.

In a race to be the first to four, Post tied the match up at 1-1 with Cronje's two-set sweep of Malik in the #5 Singles with identical 6-3 wins and it was responded to by the Griffins with a pair of 6-3 wins of their own by Lima in the #3 Singles over Despontin. 

Regaining the overall edge was the Eagles with their #6 Singles victory which went to Kolchanov after he dropped set one, 6-4, against Vicente before responding with 6-2 and 6-1 set wins to steal that match away. It looked like it would be Post taking the 3-2 edge as senior Niklas Langenfeld held a one set lead in the #4 Singles after winning 6-4 and was ahead 4-2 against Sousa. But Sousa would rattle off the next 10 points of the match to turn a 4-2 deficit into a 6-4 win in set two before sweeping set three, 6-0, putting the Griffins on the brink of a trip to the championship.

It came down to who would finish first between the #1 and #2 Singles which were both in the third set at that point with Kerber and Cutting splitting their sets, 6-4 and 6-3, while Andersson came back from losing set one, 7-5, to snag set two, 6-4. With Kerber on the brink of making it come down to the #2 Singles, Cutting came back from a 5-4 deficit and 6-5 deficit to force the seven-point tiebreaker in which he was yet again on the brink multiple times.

While this was going on, Andersson trailed Franquis but had briefly taken a 5-4 lead before his opponent took a 6-5 edge in the waning moments of the match. Before those two could finish, Cutting yet again pulled off a come-from-behind effort against Kerber to win the tiebreaker point, 10-8, giving Chestnut Hill College the team win, 4-2, and sending them to the CACC Championship. 

BY THE NUMBERS

• Dante Despontin and Gustavo Kerber's suffered their second straight loss as a Doubles duo, dropping to 9-3 and end the year having lost three of their final five Doubles matches  
• Gustavo Kerber's winning streak in Singles matches was snapped at four games with his loss in the #1 Singles today -- Kerber will finish the year with a 7-10 record overall 
• After losing three straight matches, Ivan Kolchanov won his third straight match and as a result finishes 7-7 to end the year 
• Post University is now 1-6 all-time in the CACC Tournament Semifinals with today's loss and 0-6 against Chestnut Hill in Semifinal matches -- The last time the Eagles made an appearance in the CACC Championship Game was the 2016-17 season against Chestnut Hill College