Middlebury, Vt. – The No. 6 seed Trinity College men's tennis team lost to third-seeded Bowdoin, 5-0, on Friday morning in the opening round of the 2015 New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Men's Tennis Championship at Proctor Tennis Courts.

With the win, the Polar Bears improved to 14-4 on the season and advance to tomorrow's semifinals where they will face second-seeded and tournament host Middlebury. After the first round setback, the Bantams move to 10-5 overall as they are ousted from the conference tournament by Bowdoin for the second straight year.

Bowdoin got off to a quick start, taking all three doubles matches. At No. 1, the duo of junior Ford Traff (Wayzata, Minn.) and senior quad-captain Musyoka Mbithi (Roxbury, N.J.) dropped a 9-8 heartbreaker. Mbithi and Traff held an 8-7 edge, but Bowdoin's top doubles tandem rallied for the win. At No. 3, the Bowdoin duo of Noah Bragg and Kyle Wolfe outlasted Trinity's Rutendo Matingo (Weston, Mass.) and Ilya Levin (Wellesley, Mass.) for a 9-7 win.

In singles play, Bowdoin took matches at No. 6 and No. 5 in straight sets to seal the victory. When the match ended, Mbithi was leading 5-2 in the second set at No. 2 singles after having dropped the opening set and Matingo won the second set of his match 6-4 match at No. 3.

BOWDOIN 5, TRINITY 0
Doubles
No. 1 Luke Trinka/Luke Tercek (B) def. Ford Traff/Musyoka Mbithi (T), 9-8
No. 2 Kyle Wolstencroft/Gil Roddy (B) def. Daniel Carpenter/David Myers (T), 8-5
No. 3 Noah Bragg/Kyle Wolfe (B) def. Rutendo Matingo/Ilya Levin (T), 9-7
Singles
No. 1 Trinka (B) vs. Carpenter (T), 6-2, 2-3 (Not finished)
No. 2 Bragg (B) vs. Mbithi (T), 6-3, 2-5 (Not finished)
No. 3 Wolfe (B) vs. Matingo (T), 6-3, 4-6 (Not Finished)
No. 4 Tercek (B) vs. Traff (T), 7-6, 0-1 (Not Finished)
No. 5 Wolstencroft (B) def. Levin (T), 6-1, 6-0
No. 6 Gil Roddy (B) def. Ned Mandel (T), 6-3, 6-1