LA JOLLA, Calif. ? The No. 18 UC San Diego men's tennis team played the No. 28 squad from BYU-Hawaii Friday afternoon at the Northview Tennis courts in the second round of the NCAA Division II National Championships.  Even though it was their first match since April 18 the Tritons came out fired up and defeated the Seasiders 5-0.  UCSD evened its record at 11-11 while BYU-Hawaii finished its season at 8-3. 

The doubles matches started the action and after feeling out the play, UCSD took control and a 3-0 lead.  In the No. 1 position, Eric Rubens and Alex Placek, after losing the first two games of the match, dominated the Seasiders tandem of Rong Ma and Marvin So'onalole winning 8-4.  Tritons Bijan Moallemi and Kazumi Negishi teamed up in the No. 2 spot to defeat Manu Bajpai and Junichi Shimoda 8-3.  Lastly, in the No. 3 position, competing together in a match for the first time this season, senior Alex Whitmore and freshman Alex Edstrom combined for a huge win over Ben Stevenson and Agnel Peter, 8-5. 

Triton Head Coach Eric Steidlmayer said, “Overall, we played fantastic doubles.  No. 1 played great and the No. 3 doubles team played to the best of their abilities and brought their ?A' game today.  It was impressive.”

The Tritons then delivered wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 singles slots to finish the match.  Rubens, at No. 2, overmatched Stevenson and won 6-0, 6-0.  Negishi also stormed out of the gate to start his match winning the first set 6-1 and when his opponent, Bajpai, sustained and injury it became a matter of time before the Tritons would seal the deal.  Negishi closed the second set 6-0 for the victory.

Steidlmayer summed things up saying, “This was a big win versus a good team.  We played well.”

Next up for the Tritons will be a third round match at 1:30 p.m. in Houston, Texas on Wednesday, May 14 hosted by the Harris County Sports Authority and Rice University.  UC San Diego will play against No. 4 Drury, a team that knocked off Missouri-St. Louis and Grand Valley State, 5-0 and 5-0, in rounds one and two to advance.  The Panthers are 23-2 on the season.