Waves Out in NCAA Tournament
5/26/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
May 26, 2005
College Station, TX - Pepperdine junior Scott Doerner was ousted in the second round of the NCAA Singles Championship in College Station, Texas Thursday when he lost to No. 18 Benjamin Becker of Baylor 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Doerner and partner Pedro Rico were upset later in the day in the first round of the doubles draw.
No. 34 Doerner took the first set off of the 9-16 seed Becker, but his success halted there. Becker returned with a mirror 6-3 win of his own in the second set. The decider saw Becker take Doerner's service games again knock him out of the draw in the round of 32.
Doerner retook the courts with Rico at the Mitchell Tennis Center on the campus of Texas A&M following a rain delay Thursday. In the first round of doubles play Doerner and Rico were a 5-8 seed thanks to their No. 7 national rank. Drawing Tulane's No. 27 pair of Dmitriy Kock and Albreto Sottocorno, the Waves were the favorites in the round of 32 match.
The Green Wave stunned the Pepperdine tandem in the first set with a 6-3 win. Resilient, Doerner/Rico came out hard in the second set, taking a 5-2 lead and holding on to win 6-3 to force a third and deciding set.
With one set left to settle which two men would have their season survive, the underdogs took the set's first break late. Off Pepperdine's serve, Koch/Sottocorno went up 5-3 and served for the match. Tulane held for the upset, ending Doerner's and Rico's junior seasons.
In the final team poll of the season Pepperdine came in at No. 8, after falling to second-place Baylor in the national quarterfinals on Sunday in College Station. Over the course of the year Pepperdine climbed 19 spots from their No. 27 ranking in January.
The Waves finished the season at 24-3, with two of those losses coming to Baylor in Texas. In 2005 the Waves were 7-3 against top-25 teams and posted 16 wins over ranked opponents.
