Nathan Buturla won his doubles and singles matches against Saddleback.
Nathan Buturla won his doubles and singles matches against Saddleback.

Comets go down to the wire in loss to Gauchos

SAN MARCOS, CA (2/4/2020) – In their season opener, men's tennis lost a close match to Saddleback College.

The Comets and Gauchos were tied at four and it all came down to the No. 1 singles match between Palomar's Daniel Di-Mateo and Saddleback's Lucas Fortt. Fortt won the first set 7-6 and Di-Matteo came back to win the second set 6-4. The two went back and forth in the tiebreaker set in which Fortt won 13-11. Saddleback took the match 5-4.

Di-Mateo and his doubles partner, Nathan Buturla are the No. 1 doubles this season. They defeated Fortt and Riley McCall 8-6. The No. 3 doubles match was between Palomar's Aiden Portillo and Yuki Miyato and Saddleback's Oliver Svensson and Thomas Henrick. Saddleback on that match 8-3. Tied at one point a piece, it came down to Cer Jeeno Villamor and Michael Piarulli of Palomar to pull out the advantage moving into singles. The pair was leading and Saddleback came back to tie in continue rolling to win the set 9-7 to give Saddleback the 2-1 lead.

Palomar's Buturla won his singles match in two sets (6-1, 6-4). Villamor and Portillo won their matches as well (6-3, 6-3; 6-4, 6-4 respectively).

The men are 0-1 and face Orange Coast College on Thursday Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. on the road.