WALTHAM, Mass. -- The Brandeis men's tennis team battled back from a 4-2 deficit with a pair of three-set wins to tie visiting MIT, ranked No. 28 in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, but the Engineers won the decisive match to escape Waltham with a 5-4 victory.

MIT won two out of three doubles matches, with Matthew Skalak and Edwin Zhang defeating Brandeis senior Ezra Bernstein (Buffalo, N.Y./City Honors School) and junior David Yovanoff (Eden, N.Y./Eden), 8-3, at No. 1 and Elia Harmatz and Larry Pang topping Judge rookies Ben Fine (Providence, R.I./Moses Brown School) and Michael Secular (Bronx, N.Y./Plant, Fla.) taking an 8-4 triumph at No. 3. The Judges averted the doubles sweep when junior Josh Jordan (Northboro, Mass./Algonquin Regional) and rookie Alec Siegel (Deerfield, Ill./Deerfield) with an 8-6 win, fending off MIT's Eugene Oh and Curtis Wu. 

In singles action, MIT pushed the lead to 3-1 when Pang defeated Siegel, 6-3, 6-0, at No. 3. The next two matches that went in straight sets were split, with Wu defeating Brandeis sophomore Adam Brown (W. Simsbury, Conn./Simsbury) at No. 6 and Jordan knocking off Zhang at No. 1, both by 6-3, 6-3 scores. 

Facing defeat, the Judges bounced back with a pair of three-set wins. Yovanoff rallied from a set down to defeat MIT's Brian Oldfield at No. 2, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2, while Secular bounced back from a rough second set to bounce Harmatz at No. 5, 7-5, 2-6, 6-1. That left Oh and Bernstein at No. 4 singles, but it was the visitor who prevailed, 5-7, 7-6, 6-4, to clinch the match.

#28 MIT 5, Brandeis 4
Apr 05, 2012 at Waltham, Mass. (Rieger Tennis Courts)