(Courtesy of yumacs.com) The Yeshiva University men’s tennis team knocked off Skyline Conference rival United States Merchant Marine Academy, 7-2, at the USTA National Tennis Center on Sunday afternoon. With the victory, the Maccabees have clinched their fourth consecutive Skyline regular season championship. YU went a perfect 7-0 in conference play (11-5 overall) and has now extended its conference winning streak to 30 matches.

No. 1 Yeshiva will aim for its fifth consecutive Skyline tournament championship, as the Macs will host No. 4 Farmingdale State in the conference semifinal round on Wednesday evening. The Mariners (9-6, 6-1 Skyline) were unbeaten in the conference heading into today’s matchup, but will settle for the No. 2 seed and host No. 3 Mount Saint Mary in the other Skyline semifinal match.

“It was a hard-fought victory today,” Yeshiva University head coach Jon Rubinstein said. “The guys really came together when it counted in crunch time. Although I am very happy to clinch the regular season title, the work is not over and our NCAA goals have yet to be achieved. If we keep this up, we will get there in a few weeks.”

Against Merchant Marine, the Maccabees won two out of three doubles flights and five out of six singles matches to clinch the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Skyline championships.

Junior Adam Rosemblaum and sophomore Lior Brik kicked things off with a win in the first doubles position, 8-5. Senior Charlie Friedman and sophomore Avidan Rudansky combined forces to win a tight third doubles battle, 8-6.

Brik began the singles portion of the match with a convincing win in the fifth flight, 6-3, 6-0. Rudansky continued Yeshiva’s momentum with a two-set victory at the sixth position, 6-3, 6-2. Rosemblaum dominated at #1 singles, 6-1, 6-1, while junior Mikey Ozery won the 10-point tiebreaker to claim #2 singles, 6-1, 6-7, 1-0 (10-4). Freshman Dor Gutterman won the first set at the third position, but dropped the next two sets in the highly competitive singles match (6-1, 3-6, 4-6). Friedman wrapped up the match with a hard-fought win at #4 singles, 6-3, 6-7, 1-0 (10-5).

Editor’s note: The top seed Macs will take on the No. 4 seed Farmingdale Rams on Thursday night after this paper goes to print; stay tuned for updates in next week’s Link.