Cavs drop doubles point to Trojans

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Virginia Cavaliers lost the doubles point for only the third time all season, and before they could attempt to chip away at Southern California’s lead, the teams were forced off the court by lightning.

Within 15 minutes, the rain started and never stopped forcing NCAA officials to postpone the remainder of the match to 10 a.m. EST today.

None of the six singles matches had reached a third game and there were no service breaks on any court when the match was halted.

There were number of breaks in doubles play, where Virginia won 8-6 at No. 1 and lost 8-5 at No. 3. The Cavaliers had an opportunity win the point after breaking Daniel Nguyen to go up 8-7, but the Trojans broke Houston Barrick, forcing the tiebreaker, where the Trojans opened with five straight points before winning 9-7 (5).

The Trojan duo of Nguyen and Abdullah Magdas received a fortunate roll on the first point of the tiebreaker with the ball hitting the net cord and climbing over just enough that neither Cavalier, despite being near the net, could reach.

From there, the Trojans extended their lead with two winners and two unforced errors by the Cavs.

A double fault by the Trojans kept the Cavs’ hopes alive, and then UVaclosed the gap to 5-6 on their next two service points. But the Trojans were celebrating after Singh’s top-spin lob went just long.

Dominic Inglot and Michael Shabaz broke the No. 4 ranked team of Robert Farah and Steve Johnson two of their last three service games for an 8-6 win.

Matt Kecki and Jaak Poldma broke the Virginia duo of Drew Courtney and Lee Singer to go up 5-4, then finished with a backhand winner to break Courtney for an 8-5 victory.

The No. 1 Cavs (32-0) had only loss twice, to UCLA and Duke, in the doubles coming into Saturday’s match. They came back to win both those matches, 4-3.

No. 8 Southern Cal (22-5) is 19-1 after winning the doubles point.