NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships : Long Beach Doubles Up UC Irvine, 5-3

UC Irvine was swept in two doubles matches by Cal State Long Beach Saturday, as the 49ers defeated the Anteaters, 5-3, to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I tennis championships at Athens, Ga.

The teams split six singles matches before Long Beach’s Pat Crow and Kevin Gillette defeated Mark Kaplan and Trevor Kronemann, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, and Richard Berg and Pat Hultgren beat Julian Barham and Darren Yates, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, to clinch the victory.

Singles winners for UCI, which finished the season 25-11, were No. 4 Barham, who defeated Kevin Gillette, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; No. 5 Yates, who defeated Pat Crow, 6-4, 7-6, and No. 6 Richard Lubner, who defeated Mitch Bridge, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4.

Shige Kanroji, who played No. 5 singles despite a sprained thumb, lost to Hultgren, 6-3, 6-2. Mike Caddigan, the Anteaters’ No. 4 singles player, did not make the trip because of a viral infection that caused a severe fever.

Still, Irvine Coach Greg Patton said he was confident entering doubles play. “We wanted to go 3-3 (in singles) with them and let our doubles do the pounding,” he said. “But we played a lot of tennis, and our guys were a little worn out.”

Long Beach, seeded No. 2, plays No. 10 seed Tennessee in the quarterfinals today. The Volunteers defeated No. 7 South Carolina, 5-3, Saturday.

In other matches: No. 14 Miami of Florida upset No. 3 SMU, 5-1; No. 1 USC beat No. 17 Michigan, 5-1; No. 4 Georgia defeated No. 13 Clemson, 5-2; No. 6 UCLA defeated Texas Christian, 5-1; No. 8 Louisiana State beat No. 9 Texas, 5-2, and No. 5 Pepperdine defeated California, 5-3.