NCAA Tennis Championships : UCI Wins, Will Meet USC Again in Final 8

When the UC Irvine men’s tennis team departed from the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. team tournament last year--courtesy of Cal State Long Beach in the round of 16--Greg Patton shook hands with 49er Coach Larry Easley and started thinking about 1988.

Well, for Patton, the book officially closed on the 1987 NCAA tournament Saturday. His Irvine team recorded a first in the tennis program’s 11-year Division I history with its 5-1 victory over Arizona State in a round of 16 match at the University of Georgia’s Henry Feild Stadium.

Anteater tennis history was made when No. 6 singles player Mike Cadigan won a three-setter to clinch the Arizona State match with a backhand volley winner. The victory puts Irvine into the final eight for the very first time.

And who did Patton shake hands with first as he walked off the court?

Easley.

“Yeah, it was only fitting the first guy I shake hands with is Larry Easley,” said Patton of Easley, who is no longer with the 49ers. “He was the first guy to shake our hands last year.”

With the victory, Irvine today will meet No. 3-seeded USC for the third and most important match of the season. USC, which advanced to the quarterfinals on Saturday by beating Southwest Louisiana, 5-1, has defeated Irvine, 5-2, on the two earlier occasions.

Even as excited as Patton was after beating the Sun Devils, he still realized how most people think about the matchup against USC.

“The only time we’re mentioned is that we have the funny name,” Patton said. “If it wasn’t for our name, no one would knew who we are.”

Which may seem a bit of an exaggeration since the Anteaters are ranked No. 5 in the country. But even as Patton spoke, a spectator walked by and said, “Anteaters?”

After the way Irvine played Saturday--dropping just one match and three sets in all--at least Arizona State fans are familiar with the Anteaters. Shige Kanroji, who appeared tight, lost, 6-3, 6-4, to Arizona State’s Dan Marting at No. 5. But the most significant performance came at No. 1 singles as Mark Kaplan defeated Doug Sachs, 6-1, 6-1. Kaplan had dropped a 6-7, 7-6, 7-5 match to Sachs in March.

“Mark tends to pace himself well,” Patton said. “He paces himself for the end of the year. He’s like RoboMark or maybe RoboKaplan. The way he’s playing now, it’s like he’s come back from the dead.”

In other matches, Trevor Kronemann beat Ken Kuperstein, 6-0, 6-4, at No. 2; Richard Lubner defeated Brian Gyetko, 6-1, 6-3, and Mike Briggs beat Jeff Wood, 6-3, 6-3, at No. 4.

“It really helps having been here before,” Kronemann said. “We’ve gotten used to the surroundings. It doesn’t take us as long to get used to the courts.”

Said Patton: “If we play like we did today, I can’t see us losing against USC. Our top guys only lost 10 games combined. My guys are playing 10 times better than when we last played USC.”

So, Irvine having lost twice to USC, will see if 10 times better is enough to prevent the Trojans from winning for a third time.