William and Mary returned from its disappointing Saturday morning loss to James Madison with a vengeance in the evening, handing CAA-foe Delaware a 6-1 thrashing.
The win came in the final home matches for senior Jacob Braig and graduate student Robert Pietrucha. (More after the slideshow.)
“The team came out and really played hard,” head coach Peter Daub said of the afternoon match. “[Delaware’s] a team — when you play them second in the day after having a tough match earlier — it’s a team you have to get up for. I was proud of our guys.”
The College quickly set the tone with impressive doubles play. First up, sophomore John Banks and Pietrucha downed Delaware’s Ryan Kent and Andre Vorobyov at the No. 2 spot, 8-3. But the Blue Hens tied things up, dealing junior Anton Andersson and freshman Will juggins an 8-6 defeat in the No. 1 slot. The Tribe ultimately brought home the opening point of the match with a win at the No. 3 spot, however, when Braig and sophomore Ben Hoogland notched an 8-6 win, giving the College a 1-0 lead in the overall score heading into the singles portion.
The Tribe quickly let the Blue Hens know that the second part of the match would be no different than the first as junior Adrian Vodislav opened things up with a dominant 6-1, 6-2, win over Troy Beneck at the No. 1 spot.
“Adrian played his best match of the year,” Daub said. “With Adrian, he just had to be happy, get a lot of sleep and go out there and enjoy himself. He played the best match I’ve seen him play in his three years here.”
For Vodislav, the goal of the match was to simply smother Beneck.
“I played well. I didn’t give him any chance to get into the match,” Vodislav said. “He had no chance to react. The match was over before he could do anything.”
Next, No. 3 Hoogland dispatched Vorobyov in similarly impressive fashion, 6-1, 6-4, to give the College a 3-0 stranglehold on the match.
“My serve was just working and my forehand too, I felt relaxed,” Hoogland said. “It’s nice for your confidence. I lost in three sets this morning so it’s nice to get the win under my belt and under the team’s belt.”
The beating continued when Andersson dropped Adam Lawton in straight sets at the No. 2 spot, 6-3, 6-3. Finally, after Juggins and Pietrucha both secured singles wins of their own in the No. 5 and No. 6 slots, respectively, Delaware got its only singles victory of the day as Nolan Gelman bounced back from a 6-0 first-set loss to win the last two sets, 6-2, 6-4, over Banks at the No. 4 spot.
Having played its final home match of the year, the College sits just under three weeks from the CAA Tournament starting April 20. Two important road conference-matches stand in the way, though, as the Tribe will first have to take on Virginia Commonwealth April 11 and Old Dominion April 14.