The Quinnipiac men’s tennis team lost to Sacred Heart 4-3 Sunday night in North Haven. The Bobcats are now 2-5 while the 3-7 Pioneers extend their win streak to two games. 

The Pioneers snapped the Bobcats’ seven-match winning streak against Sacred Heart, their first victory over Quinnipiac since 2011. 

Quinnipiac lost two out of the three doubles matchups, giving Sacred Heart the point. Junior Kemal Karagozoglu and senior Alester Magalit won the only doubles match for the Bobcats 6-3. Sophomore Ayato Arakaki and freshman Yasha Laskin were in an intense match that went to a tiebreaker, but couldn’t pull out the win and fell 7-6.

In the singles matchups, Quinnipiac sophomore Shaurya Sood, Magalit and their new teammate, sophomore Donovan Brown, picked up victories. Brown made his season debut and was dominant. 

“The first win felt really good,” Brown said. “It was a new experience for me for sure. I had the guys cheering me on, so it just helped me pull through the match. I didn’t feel I was at my greatest, but I found a way to win. I had a lot of nerves actually coming into it, but I overcame it you know, I had to deliver today. There was no losing today.”

In the first set, Brown went up 3-0, but then Sacred Heart sophomore Phillip Lynch won the next four games making it 4-3. After this, Brown won the next three games earning himself the win 6-4. In the second set, Brown took a commanding 5-0 lead. He dropped the next two games but it wouldn’t matter as he would win the following game. Brown secured the 6-2 win for the set and the match. His performance impressed Quinnipiac head coach Chris Pappas. 

“I think it’s great, it gives us another capable guy to go out there and show us he can go get a win,” Pappas said. “We just gotta keep working him in full and get him ready to compete at this level and keep building on it, but I’m definitely excited about what he did today and what we can do going forward with him.”

The Bobcats have been riddled with injuries throughout the year. Coming off multiple injuries, graduate student Javier Casosolas Monllor played his first singles match since his win against St. Johns on Jan. 22nd.

“We’ve been playing so many matches without a full lineup so guys have been playing out of position, so this is just really giving us an opportunity to kind of get a lineup set and see where people can go. Again we just gotta keep getting healthy and get a little bit better and stronger at those spots then we’ll be alright.”

The Bobcats will travel to Manchester, Connecticut to face Franklin Pierce (3-3) on Wednesday, March 16.