Flushing, NY – In an exciting match that came right down to the wire, it would be the freshmen duo of Arthur Kapetanakis (Staten Island, NY/Tottenville) and Louis Cruz (Bronx, NY/F.L.A.G.S.) who came from behind to upend the Bearcats in third doubles and clinch a 5-4 victory for Hunter in a CUNY Athletic Conference match Friday night at the USTA Center in Flushing, NY

The weather forecast for Friday was not promising, so the decision was made to start the match with singles with the expectation of getting more matches finished before a possible rainout. For the Hawks, sophomore Alex Stanciu (New York, NY/Locust Valley) won his first singles match 7-5, 6-1 and junior Roy Forberg (Brooklyn, NY/AOSR) earned a 6-3, 6-3 win over Marcelo Kim at second singles. The Bearcats then picked up wins at third, fourth and fifth single to take a 3-2 match lead. At sixth singles, freshman Irving Salazar (Corona, NY/John Bowne) came from losing the first set 7-6 (7-1) by winning the next two sets 6-3 and 6-1 to tie the overall match to 3-3.

The weather was holding up at this point, so doubles matches were started and the Bearcats seemed to grab a big edge by quickly winning second doubles 8-1. However, the Hawks kept fighting back and the tandem of Stanciu and sophomore Ian Katz (Woodside, NY/American Studies) defeated Kim and freshman Damon Ye 8-6 at first doubles. In third doubles, Baruch's Andrew Smith and Aleksandr Kolomiets held an early one game lead and would go up 4-3, but Cruz and Kapetanakis battled back and took a 7-6 lead just as a light drizzle began to fall. After some disucsion between the coaches, official and players, it was decided to attempt to get the rest of the match in and a game was started. However, after the first point was scored in favor of Hunter, the official felt the court was too slippery and halted the match. Luckily for both teams, there was an indoor court available and so the venue shifted to indoors where the Hawks scored the next three points to claim an 8-6 win and the 5-4 overall victory.

Hunter now improves to 9-2 on the year and remains unbeaten in CUNYAC play with a 6-0 record, while the Bearcats fall to 6-4 on the year and 5-3 in the conference. Hunter will be back in action on Sunday when they travel to Patchogue, NY to face the Golden Eagles of Saint Joseph's College for a 1:00 p.m. non-conference match.