After a week off following an impressive spring break trip, the men’s tennis team headed down to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania to face off against No. 20 Case Western Reserve University and No. 19 Kenyon College.

In what was a very successful weekend, the Mammoths took both matches in dominant fashion.

Amherst’s first matchup was Saturday against Case Western, a contest in which the Mammoths showed consistency from start to finish.

The new top doubles duo of Sean Wei ’21 and Jayson Fung ’20 got the job done, finishing off James Fojtasek and Anthony Kanam in a tightly contested match that ended 8-6.

However, the other two doubles matches didn’t go quite as well for Amherst. In the second doubles slot, Zach Bessette ’19 and Kevin Ma ’21 fell to Jonathan Powell and Neil Mabee, 5-8, while juniors Jon Heidenberg and Cameron Raglin were beaten by Matthew Chen and Sam Concannon, 4-8.

It was on the singles courts that the Mammoths turned the meet around. Wei got it going with an easy 6-1, 6-2 win over Fojtasek on court one, and Amherst never looked back.

Ethan Hillis ’21 followed Wei with a tough 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 victory over Chen. Ma, Bessette and Fung continued the momentum with singles victories of their own.

Although Jesse Levitin ’19 couldn’t overcome Powell in the sixth singles spot, it wouldn’t matter at that point, as Amherst had secured the 6-3 victory.

The Mammoths weren’t done yet as they still had to face Kenyon.

The Amherst doubles teams flipped the script in this matchup as the Mammoths swept all three matches.

Wei and Fung started it off with an 8-4 win over Weston Noall and Alex Reiger.
The pairing of Hillis and Bessette held on to complete an 8-6 victory over Austin Diehl and Jacob Zalenski on the second court, and last but not least, Ma and Raglin did their part as the third doubles pair, notching an 8-4 win over Michael Liu and Bryan Yoshino.

On the singles side, the Mammoths replicated their success from the prior day’s matchup, claiming five out of the six matches with all of the victories coming in straight sets.

Wei, Ma, Bessette, Fung and Levitin all took care of business, amd only Hillis fell in three sets to Austin Diehl, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6.

In the end, the Mammoths emerged with a convincing 8-1 victory to wrap up their Swarthmore sweep.

Amherst will travel to Maine next weekend to face off against two NESCAC foes, Bates and Bowdoin.

It won’t be a cakewalk against either team, especially Bowdoin, which is currently ranked No. 2 in the nation and won the DIII National Championship in 2016.

The first match of the weekend will be at Bates on Saturday, April 7 at 1 p.m.