EDGEWATER, N.J. (February 25, 2023) – Sophomore Vivek Harinarayan had a come-from-behind, three-set victory at first singles to power the Stevens Institute of Technology men's tennis team to a 6-3 victory over No. 29 Haverford College Saturday in a non-conference matchup at Edgewater Tennis Club.

Sophomore Matt Luzzi had a three-set victory at sixth singles for the Ducks, who captured five of the six singles flights to win the match and improve to 2-1.

James McKenzie had a straight-set win at fourth singles for Haverford, who also won two of the three doubles flights, but dropped to 1-1. The Ducks have won four of the last six matchups between the programs. 

"I'm so proud of what our team showed tonight on court," head coach Steve Gachko said. "We were down 2-1 after doubles then fought back to take five out of the six singles matches. The tenacity, confidence, and relentless determination was the difference. The growth our team has shown since last year when we faced this team in a tough 5-4 loss is tremendous. Today was definitely a good day to be a Duck!"

After dropping the first point of the match with a setback at No. 3 doubles, Harinarayan and junior Aashi Kulakarni posted an impressive 8-1 victory in the second flight over Justin Minerva and Aiden Kim. Haverford would score a hard-fought 8-6 victory at first doubles to take a 2-1 lead into the singles flights.

First-year Max-William Kanz evened the match with a straight-set victory over Danny Loder at fourth singles. Kulakarni followed with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Stefan Johnson at second singles, but Haverford's McKenzie again knotted the score with a straight-set win on line five.

Junior Andrew He earned a three-set win over Kim at third singles to give the Ducks a 4-3 lead to set the stage for Harinarayan's heroics. The second-year player dropped the first set to Andres Wingert 6-4, before forcing a deciding set with a 6-3 margin in the second set. In the third, Harinarayan raced out to a 4-1 lead before Kim won the next two games to cut the lead to 4-3. However, Harinarayan won the next two games to secure the thrilling win, clinching the match in the process.

Luzzi capped the victory with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over Adam Chow at sixth singles.

Up Next: Men's Tennis welcomes No. 11 Johns Hopkins University to the Edgewater Tennis Club on Mar. 10. It will be the second-ever meeting between the teams. 

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