No. 21 Cougar Tennis falls a match short to 17th ranked Iowa Central #GoBarton

A pair of doubles wins got the Barton Community College men's tennis team off a good start Sunday but the No. 21 Cougars only won two of the singles matches as the 17th ranked Tritons of Iowa Central Community College won the match 5-4.

In a combination of indoor matches inside of the Kirkman Activity Center and the squad's outside courts, Barton's No. 1 doubles team of Marcel Miasato and Yordi Ponce got the Cougars off to a good start grinding out an 8-6 win on the inside court over Triton's Cliff Dwyer and Colten Way.

Tinashe Muzenyi and Thales Machado also had a tough match but was able to prevail 8-6 to capture the No. 3 duo match against Jacob Martens and Zane Baker.

Machado would be the lone two match victor on the day putting away Nicholas Fifield in a pair of 6-2 sets to win the No. 5 singles match.

Jack Peoples had the marathon match of the afternoon inside the Center battling back from a 6-1 first set loss to Antony Lekoko before taking the second 7-6, 7-4 in the tiebreak, to win 10-3 in the third to capture the No. 4 match.

Iowa Central won the No. 2 tandem match over Miguel Valle and Peoples with an 8-3 win by Ruu Pultz and Manuel Roman.

The Tritons won the top three singles matches, with Roman beating Miasato in the one slot 6-2, 6-3 with Dwyer taking down Ponce in straight 6-4 sets for the No. 2 match while Way came out on top 6-4, 6-3 over Valle in the third singles match.

Concluding the regular season at 3-7, Barton will turn its attention to post-season with the Cougars traveling to Arkansas City for the Region VI Championships held Friday and Saturday, April 20-21.