Conference Highlights
With a trip to the NCAA Tournament on the line, Naveen Beasley and Corey Pang both found themselves a game away from abruptly ending the last match at the Big West Conference Men's Tennis Championship on Sunday afternoon.
Beasley got there first, clinching Cal Poly's 4-1 win over Hawai'i on courts 3-8 at Indian Wells Tennis Garden to earn the Mustangs' second trophy at the venue in a three-year span.
In doing so, the junior completed a 7-5, 6-3 win over Pavel Liska on the No. 6 court. Pang, who was battling Danilo Casanova at No. 4, led his third set 5-2 at the time (after going 6-4, 1-6).
"It's hard to put it into words," Cal Poly head coach Nick Carless said.
After starting the regular season 0-7 in dual play, Carless said he and the team used the recent postseason run by the Cal Poly men's basketball squad as inspiration.
"We kind of viewed the season they had as a model of peaking at the right time of the year," he said. "We just kept talking about wanting to play our best tennis at the end  that it wasn't necessarily how you start, but how you finish. And the guys kept working, and we ended up playing our best tennis down here in the desert."
Sunday's victory also avenged a 6-1 loss to the Rainbow Warriors in Honolulu on March 24 that snapped a five-match winning streak.
This time, the shortened meeting between the top two seeds was different from the onset.
Seniors Marco Comuzzo and Matt Thomson rebounded from an early 2-1 hole against Nils Schuhmann and David Schuster to eventually win 8-4 at No. 1 doubles.
Then senior Jurgen De Jager and freshman Ben Donovan took the point at No. 3, rallying from a 6-5 deficit by claiming the next three games versus Chas Okamoto and Marcel Chan.
"We had a much better start in doubles today," Carless said.
After UH evened it at 1-all in singles, Cal Poly got back in front on the third court, where De Jager  now a team-best 15-3 this spring  sidelined Okamoto 7-5, 6-0. (In the first of those sets, he trailed 1-2, 3-4 and 4-5 before closing emphatically.)
Afterward, Donovan (now 17-10 overall) won 6-1, 7-5 opposite Jonathan Brooklyn at No. 1. In fighting back from being down 4-5 in the latter, he set up Beasley's dramatic championship-point scenario about three hours and 25 minutes after the morning's first serve.
"Naveen has done an amazing job of closing out matches," Carless added.
It was the second time in a row that Beasley's racquet was the one to finalize the outcome, as teammates also rushed him to celebrate Friday's 4-0 semifinal versus UC Santa Barbara.
Cal Poly (11-12 overall) will wait until 2 p.m. Tuesday to learn its first-round opponent during the NCAA.com Selection Show.
The NCAA Tournament's opening rounds will be held May 9-11 at sites yet to be announced.
On a team basis, this is the Mustangs' third NCAA Tournament appearance over the past four seasons.
Post Season Highlights
Four Cal Poly athletics teams have earned Public Recognition Awards from the NCAA for exceptional academic achievement.
The Mustang men's golf, men's tennis, women's swimming and women's soccer teams all posted scores in the top 10 percent of their sport based on their most recent multi-year Academic Progress Rates.
The scores required to be in the top ten ranged from 980 to a perfect 1,000, depending on the sport, with the majority of top 10 teams earning a perfect APR. The most recent APRs are rates based on scores from the 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.
The three Cal Poly teams are among 1,049 teams publicly recognized for high achievement, representing 631 women’s teams and 418 men’s or mixed squads. In 2013, 976 teams were recognized, including the Mustang men's tennis team.
Cal Poly's women's swimming team was recognized for the third time, also gaining Public Recognition Awards in 2007 and 2008.
The APR measures eligibility, graduation and retention each semester or quarter and provides a clear picture of the academic performance for each team in each sport. The APR is an annual scorecard of academic achievement calculated for all Division I sports teams nationally. Teams must meet a certain academic threshold to qualify for the postseason, and they also can face penalties for continued low academic performance.
APRs for all Division I teams will be released May 14.
Tournament Highlights
At No. 1 and 2 singles, Cal Poly's Ben Donovan and Marco Comuzzo each won a set against the two top-ranked collegiate tennis players in the nation, but sixth-seeded UCLA held on for a 4-0 home win over the Mustangs in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday afternoon.
In doubles, senior Jurgen De Jager teamed with Donovan to defeat Joseph Di Giulio and Clay Thompson 8-5 at No. 3, tying it 1-all.
The ITA's 10th-ranked duo in the country, though — Marcos Giron and Mackenzie McDonald — topped Comuzzo and fellow senior Matt Thomson 8-5 on the first court to clinch the go-ahead point.
The Bruins (23-3) took a 3-0 lead with wins at No. 6 and 5 singles. McDonald (ranked 35th individually) then settled the overall outcome at No. 3 by a 6-4, 6-3 win over De Jager.
At the top, Donovan (17-10 overall) lived up to his billing as the Big West Conference Freshman of the Year.
He won the first set over Thompson (37-5), 6-4, before it was evened up via a 3-6 second set.
Donovan was then up 3-0 in the third before the match was rendered unfinished — just nine points away from a win over the No. 1-ranked collegian in the land.
Not to be outdone, versus the second-ranked player — Giron (22-4) — Comuzzo also won his initial set 6-4.
Giron then fought back with a 2-6 victory, before Comuzzo was up 3-2 at the time of sudden death.
Mustang freshman Corey Pang also held his own at the No. 4 spot, trailing 71st-ranked Gage Brymer 7-6, 3-2 before the stoppage.
Individual Achievements
Cal Poly and Hawai‘i highlighted the announcement of the 2014 men's tennis all-conference team. The Mustangs had Nick Carless tabbed as Big West Coach of the Year and Ben Donovan Freshman of the Year, while the Rainbow Warriors witnessed Jonathan Brooklyn as the Player of the Year.
Carless became Cal Poly's first Coach of the Year honoree after leading the Mustangs to the Big West Tournament championship. The third-year mentor led the second-seeded Mustangs to victories over No. 3 seed UC Santa Barbara and No. 1 seed Hawai‘i to wrap up the program's second tournament crown in three years. The tournament title locked in Cal Poly as the Big West's automatic representative to the NCAA Tournament, marking the program's third overall postseason appearance and the second under Carless.
The championship run culminated an incredible turnaround for the Mustangs. After starting the season 0-7, the Mustangs rebounded to win seven of their next eight matches. A setback to Hawai‘i in a Big West regular season match on March 24 started a four-game skid, but the Mustangs recovered to win four straight, including the tourney finals win against UH that avenged the earlier 6-1 loss. Carless led Cal Poly to a second place finish in the Big West regular season race with a 4-1 mark.
For the fourth time in the last six years, Cal Poly is home to the Freshman of the Year. Donovan, who hails from Germantown, Tenn, joined Andre Dome (2009), Jordan Bridge (2010) and current teammate Marco Comuzzo (2011) on that list. Donovan posted a 12-7 overall record in dual matches, including a 6-2 mark at the No. 1 spot. Donovan notched a huge straight sets victory over Brooklyn in the Big West Tournament final to help the Mustangs record the 4-1 win. Donovan also won his semifinal match against UC Santa Barbara's Ziad Sultan.
Hawai‘i captured its first major men's tennis honor as a Big West member with the selection of Brooklyn as Player of the Year. The native of Hillingdon, England collected a 9-8 record as the exclusive No. 1 player for the Rainbow Warriors. He helped UH finish 4-0 during the Big West regular season and earn the championship. He was victorious in singles in all four of those conference matches, including wins over fellow first-team all-league selections in Donovan and Alec Adamson of UC Davis. Brooklyn also had a three-set victory over Robin Cambier of No. 27-ranked Oregon on March 26.
The complete listing of the 2014 Big West All-Conference Team is on the next page:
Coaching Achievements
Cal Poly men's tennis head coach Nick Carless was announced as the Wilson/ITA Southwest Region Coach of the Year on Tuesday morning.
Coaches from 12 total regions around the country were chosen. Conferences throughout southern California, including the Pac-12, Mountain West and WCC, were represented in the southwest distinction; geographically, the next-closest coach to be recognized was Oregon's Nils Schyllander, who claimed the Northwest accolade.
The honor comes two weeks after Carless was also selected as the Big West Conference Coach of the Year.
He recently finished his third season with the program by leading the Mustangs to their second NCAA Tournament appearance on a full team basis during his tenure.
Cal Poly lost 4-0 at sixth-seeded UCLA in the first round Saturday, but the Mustangs had third-set leads at Nos. 1 and 2 singles (pictured at right) versus the two top-ranked players in the nation at the time of stoppage.
Cal Poly went on a midseason spree during which it won 11 of 16 matches, culminating in winning the Big West Tournament championship, 4-1 against top-seeded Hawai'i in the final at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on April 27.
