The Big Green performed well in singles, but its only champions were in the doubles competitions, with the team of Ari Gayer '09 and Curtis Roby '11 winning flight A and the team of David Fink '10 and Eric Scholobohm '11 winning flight B.
On the first day of competition, Gayer and Roby defeated the University of Montreal doubles pairing of Burgnard and Berthiaume, 8-5. They notched up two more wins on Sunday, defeating the team of Gert and Ujkic from Sacred Heart and then the Harvard team of Omodele-Lucien and Felton to advance to Monday's final against Saint Francis University's Danhaldi Robinson and Jindra Chaloupka.
In the finals match, Gayer and Roby were down 8 games to 7. The Dartmouth duo fell behind love-40, giving Saint Francis three match points and putting the match in deep jeopardy.
It had been a frustrating match for Gayer, whose serve had been broken twice already. One more point would have given Sacred Heart a third break and ended the match.
Gayer, however, served his way out of the dire situation. The team brought the game to deuce before eventually winning the game to send the match to a tiebreaker.
"I said, let me try to get this first serve in, try to calm down a little bit and just concentrate on one point at a time," Gayer said. "Luckily, I came up with a couple big serves, and we got it back to 8 all. It felt great and really pumped us up for the tiebreaker."
Dartmouth went up 3-0 in the tiebreaker but then lost three straight. With the tiebreaker knotted, 3-3, Gayer and Roby pulled off four straight points to take the match.
On Sunday, David Fink '11 and Eric Schlobohm '11 brought home another championship, defeating Sacred Heart University's Nick Mazzarese and Kirill Kasyanov to win flight B. Earlier that day, Fink and Schlobohm defeated Lehigh's Leland Richardson and Edgars Rauza, 8-6, to make the final.
In singles, both Gayer and Roby lost tough matches to Harvard players. On Saturday, Roby lost to Spencer Vegosen, 7-5, 6-4, in his first match of the tournament. Vegosen, a junior, had missed all of his freshman and sophomore year because of injury.
"Curtis played a great match, and this is a kid that was one of the top recruits in the country that Curtis was playing," Gayer said. "It was just a tough draw because there are a lot of players who Curtis could've beaten early on. Even though he didn't advance very far, he played a great match."
Vegosen also knocked off Dartmouth's Dan Freeman '10 in the quarterfinals before losing to teammate Alistair Felton in the semifinals.
One round before Felton knocked off Gayer, 6-4, 7-6. Felton, a freshman from England, advanced to Monday's singles final against Saint Francis University's Jindra Chaloupka. Chaloupka defeated Felton, 6-4, 6-4, to win the championship and finish off a dominating tournament. Chaloupka lost only one set all weekend, and that was against Dartmouth's Chris Ho '12 in a tightly contested 4-6, 6-4 (10-8) match.
Dartmouth's only singles semifinalists were Fink and Andy Kim '11 who both reached the semifinals of flight B. Quarterfinalists included Gayer and Freeman in flight A and Schlobohm and Strunk, who lost to Kim and Fink, respectively, in flight B.
The results of the tournament are a welcome sign as the fall season ends.
"To win doubles is something we sometimes struggle with," Gayer said. "And to come out with wins in both the A and B flights is definitely a success."
The fall tennis season officially ends in a couple of weeks, after which a "dead period" will occur. Gayer will call three or four captain's practices before winter break.
"Winter break is a great time for everyone to get into great shape and get ready for winter season," Gayer said.
Meanwhile, the Boss Tennis Center will play host to the Dartmouth women's team this weekend as it looks to wrap up its fall season as well.
