SAN ANTONIO – The nationally 13th-ranked Caltech men's tennis team kicked off its trip to Central Texas with a showdown against the No. 11 Trinity University Tigers Tuesday evening.

With both programs holding such close national rankings and fielding several regionally-ranked individuals, the match followed great anticipation and held strong postseason implications. Caltech's duo of juniors Kyle McCandless and Daniel Wen, ranked 19th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) West Region, put the Beavers on the scoreboard with a gritty 8-6 win in the second doubles pairing.

The win denied Trinity a sweep of the doubles session, coming moments after the #1 Singles matchup saw Caltech junior Ishaan Kannan and first-year Andrew Zabelo take the sixth-ranked doubles partnership in the region all the way to a tiebreak before the Tigers escaped with an 8-7 (6) win.

Then in the singles portion of the night, interrupted by an hour-long rain delay, four of the six singles matchups split their first two sets. Down 4-1 overall, senior Nathan Zou kept the Beavers' hopes alive in #6 singles with a forceful 6-2 win in his third set after splitting his first two by 6-1, 4-6 scores. 

Junior Victor Li followed on Court Five with a huge rally, dropping his first set by a 3-6 score before coming back with 6-4 and 6-1 set wins.  Kannan and Zabelo nearly pulled off the upset with split sets and requiring their opponents to play to seven games in their third sets.

Head Coach Matt Brisotti and the Beavers will next head to Georgetown, Texas to face Southwestern University, with a Wednesday matchup set for 2:30 p.m. Pacific time.