Men's Tennis | 1/11/2017 8:03:00 PM
ABILENE - Abilene Christian men's tennis begins its 2017 spring season Thursday with a challenging slate that includes a trio of NCAA qualifiers: No. 4 Texas, SMU and No. 12 Oklahoma.
The Wildcats will play all three matches on the road indoors, beginning with Thursday's 6 p.m. dual vs. the Longhorns at the Weller Indoor Tennis Center. From there ACU heads north to Dallas for a Friday dual vs. the Mustangs, which reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Championships, and on Sunday the Wildcats are in Norman, Okla., for a noon match against last spring's national finalists. The Sooners reached the finals as the nation's No. 11 team, but lost 4-1 to top-ranked Virginia.
The Wildcats return eight players from last year's team that finished 19-9 overall and 3-2 vs. the Southland Conference, including league Freshman of the Year
Josh Sheehy and Newcomer of the Year
Hunter Holman. Sheehy played the entire spring at No. 1 and went 16-9 overall. His rookie season started with a 10-match winning streak in which he scored a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Adam Gustafsson of No. 58 Rice and a 7-5, 6-1 upset win over No. 38 Alec Adamson of 53rd-ranked UC Davis.
Holman led ACU with 18 victories after coming in from Texas Tech. Fourteen of his wins were at the No. 4 position and early in the year he helped the Wildcats beat Air Force with a three-set win over Max Olson. During the last few weeks of last season he registered two significant victories over Lamar's Benny Schweizer and James Martell of No. 11 Texas A&M, 4-6, 7-5, 10-6.
The Wildcats have four returning all-conference performers on this year's roster in addition to Holman and Sheehy. Senior
Nico Agritelley received first team honors after finishing the year 7-3 over his last 10 matches at No. 3 singles and tied Holman for the team's best record against the conference at 4-1.
Henry Adams – an honorable mention for Southland singles – recorded the biggest bounce-back season of any of the Wildcats. He was 5-21 two years ago as a freshman, but last season he helped stabilize the back end of ACU's lineup with 13 wins between the No. 4, 5 and 6 positions. He also finished with a winning record against the league at 3-2.
ACU's all-conference doubles teams were composed of Sheehy and
Sebastian Langdon at No. 1 and
Paul Michael Domanski and former Wildcats
Jason Proctor at No. 2.
Sheehy and Langdon were paired late in the season and went 6-1 overall with a 4-1 mark against Southland Conference competition, while Domanski and Proctor were 3-1 against Southland opposition and 6-6 overall.
