Tag: James Trotter

Ohio State men’s tennis doubles team wins national championship

Congrats to Andrew and James, National Champions! #GoBucks

It wasn’t easy for [autotag]Ohio State[/autotag] men’s doubles tennis team of [autotag]Andrew Lutschaunig[/autotag] and [autotag]James Trotter[/autotag] facing off against a Texas Longhorns duo with a championship on the line.

The Buckeye duo battled the Longhorns’ Cleeve Harper and Eliot Spizzirri hard with the pair in burnt orange giving it their all, but eventually, Ohio State outlasted them and hoisted a championship trophy. Although OSU fell just short of the team title, Lutschaunig and Trotter helped the Buckeyes come home with some hardware nonetheless.

Ohio State won the first set 6-4, then took the second to capture the title. The senior pair closed out their Buckeye career in style, even though their ultimate goal was not quite attained bringing all the hardware home with their teammates.

Congrats to Andrew and James on an amazing Buckeye career and finishing it off with a championship.

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Ohio State men’s tennis doubles team will play for national championship

The duo will have a shot at a national title on Saturday! #GoBucks

The Ohio State men’s tennis team finished just a wee bit short of taking home a national championship, but one of the Buckeyes’ doubles teams has another shot to add a national title trophy to the case.

And it came in come-from-behind fashion.

The doubles team of Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter did battle with Pepperdine’s Daniel De Jonge and Tim Zeitvogel and had to pull off a thrilling comeback. The OSU duo started out losing the first set 6-3 and had to work hard to win the second set 7-6 in a tiebreaker by a score of 7-2.

That forced a super-tiebreaker for the third set to determine the winner and Ohio State capitalized on its momentum to win that pretty handily by a score of 10-4. Just like that, a ticket had been punched to the national championship game on Saturday opposite the team of Cleeve Harper and Eliot Spizzirri of Texas.

Match time is set for 11:30 a.m. ET.

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Three Ohio State men’s tennis players earn All-American status

More accolades for the Ohio State men’s tennis team. #GoBucks

The Ohio State men’s tennis program has been one of the most consistently high-achieving programs over the last fifteen years or so. The Buckeyes seem to have the Big Ten in a stranglehold and almost annually find their way to Orlando for the last 16 teams alive in the NCAA Championships.

This year was no different with OSU winning both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles, then finding its way into the national championship match where it fell short to defending champion, Virginia.

To make it that far, Ohio State had to have some outstanding individual players, and that was certainly the case. So much so, that three of those players made it far enough in the individual portion of the NCAA Championships to garner All-American honors.

Freshman Alexander Bernard continued his late-season rise by making it all the way to the quarterfinals despite coming into the bracket as the No. 41 ranked player. He beat No. 53 Raphael Perot from Texas A&M, and No. 56 Sanir Banerjee of Stanford to secure his All-American status. Bernard went on to defeat No. 65 Andre Ilagan of Hawaii before succumbing to No. 9 Chris Rodesch of Virginia.

James Trotter also earned All-American status by getting by No. 18 Alafia Ayeni of Kentucky in a tough three-setter, then winning over No. 16 Connor Thomson of South Carolina before falling to No. 20 Andrew Fenty of Michigan.

Cannon Kingsley also became an All-American for the third time in his career despite a tough three-set loss to No. 42 Murphy Cassone of Arizona State.

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Ohio State Men’s Tennis survives battle with No. 6 Wake Forest

The Ohio State Men’s Tennis team keeps on being challenged with Top 10 opponents, and the Buckeyes keep coming up with the answers. First it was against then-No. 1 Texas, then it was then-No. 1 USC. The Buckeyes followed that up with a win over No. …

The Ohio State Men’s Tennis team keeps on being challenged with Top 10 opponents, and the Buckeyes keep coming up with the answers.

First it was against then-No. 1 Texas, then it was then-No. 1 USC. The Buckeyes followed that up with a win over No. 7 Texas A&M, and then they knocked off No. 6 Wake Forest in a gritty battle Saturday night.

Wake Forest beat Ohio State for the 2018 National Championship, and the Buckeyes were out for revenge. Ohio State got off to a good start by winning the doubles point, but the Demon Deacons got quick wins by Bar Botzer and Taha Baadi to take a 2-1 lead. After that, this turned into an incredible match.

The Buckeyes got an important come-from-behind third-set victory by Cannon Kingsley on Court 2. Kingsley keeps on taking down tough opponents, and this match was no different.

The Buckeyes and Demon Deacons split Courts 4 and 6 with runaway third sets in each (6-1 win by Ohio State’s Kyle Seelig and 6-3 by Wake Forest’s Sid Banthia). So it all came down to the final set between James Trotter and Eduardo Nava on Court 5.

Trotter earned a break for a 5-3 lead with a huge forehand pass, but he couldn’t serve out the match. He fought back from 0-30 while serving at 5-5, and then celebrated victory when a Nava forehand went long on the deuce point in the next game.

The Buckeyes will face North Carolina in the ITA National Indoor semifinals on Sunday afternoon. North Carolina, last season, upset then-No. 1 Ohio State in the NCAA quarterfinals. The Tar Heels are currently ranked No. 4, and the Buckeyes will be out for revenge in this battle.

The winner faces the winner of USC vs No. 13 Michigan in the Monday final. The ITA rankings haven’t updated in over a week because of the ITA National Indoors this week, so USC is still technically No. 1. That top spot will almost certainly change to Ohio State when the rankings do update, but it would be nice to cap off earning with with a second consecutive National Indoors title.

Ohio State Men’s Tennis continues march to top with win over No. 1 USC

The Ohio State Buckeyes men’s tennis team upset the No. 1 USC Trojans in Columbus on Sunday.

A week after taking out then-No. 1 Texas, the Ohio State Men’s Tennis team took down another No. 1 team in the nation–the USC Trojans.

The Trojans stayed at No. 1 for a good reason–they are a rare team that has six nationally-ranked players. That is a very tough matchup for any team to beat. Even Ohio State last season–when the Buckeyes were a prohibitive No. 1 for most of the season–didn’t have six ranked players. The lowest-ranked player for USC is No. 69 Ryder Jackson, while No. 1 Daniel Cukierman leads the squad.

Ohio State wasn’t daunted by this matchup, and the Buckeyes had a great home crowd behind them. The Buckeyes took the doubles point with a 6-4 win on Court 3 and a tiebreak win on Court 2, while Ohio State’s No. 1 pair of John McNally and Robert McNally didn’t finish their set, as the Buckeyes claimed the point while that court was still in a tiebreaker.

Still, the Buckeyes needed to win three of the six singles matches, all against ranked players. McNally–whose sister Caty is making waves on the professional tour, especially with partner CoCo Gauff in doubles–took down No. 24 Brandon Holt in straight sets. The huge win was on Court 2, though, where rising star freshman Cannon Kingsley took down No. 1 Cukierman in two easy sets. USC won their matches on Courts 3 and 4, and they forced third sets on the other two. However, Buckeye sophomore James Trotter ran away with his third set against No. 65 Stefan Dostanic, and the Buckeyes took home the victory.

The Buckeyes next face No. 7 Texas A&M on Tuesday evening, again in Columbus. After that, it will be the ITA National Indoors Championships–where Ohio State enters as defending champions.

It’s been a tough road back to the top for Ohio State, after a quarterfinal loss in the NCAA tournament and the graduation of J.J. Wolf. Still, the Buckeyes should be right at No. 1 when the rankings update again, and this time the Buckeyes will want to hold on to that even deeper into the NCAAs.