NEW LONDON, Conn. — 

The United States Coast Guard Academy tennis team defeated their archrivals from the United States Merchant Marine Academy, 6-1, in their annual meeting in Thursday, April 9th. It was a big win for Bears tennis, who clinched the 2025-26 Superintendents' Trophy with the victory.

Coast Guard improves to 2-5 on the season, while Merchant Marine moves to 5-2 after the halting of their three-game win streak. Kings Point will look to bounce back on Sunday, April 12th, at Skyline Conference foes Farmingdale State College (3-5).

The Superintendents' Trophy is a yearly contest between the athletics programs of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, which are the only federal service academies that compete in NCAA Division III. The winner of the most head-to-head match-ups across multiple sports during the current academic year is awarded the Trophy. This year's race was one of the closest in the competition's 25-year history, deadlocked at 8-8-1 heading into Thursday's matches. The win delivered the 20th series victory overall and made it 12 straight years of hoisting the trophy for the Bears.

Coast Guard took a 1-0 lead on the afternoon by sweeping at doubles. Junior ace Ben Bonetto (Bend, Oreg.) and senior partner Brendan Love (Winchester, Va.) picked up a 6-2 win on #1 to improve to 4-3 as a pair, followed by senior pair Ben Carlander (Monument, Colo.) and Logan Kwon's (University Place, Wash.) 6-4 win on #3 to move up to 2-2. Completing the sweep was junior Noah Reice (Wilmington, Del.) and sophomore Konnor Eslinger (St. Louis, Mo.) with a 6-3 victory at #2, putting their record together at 2-2.

Eslinger kept it going in singles, notching a 2-0 win (6-0, 6-0) win at #4 to improve his record to 3-4. Bonetto followed with another 2-0 win (6-1, 6-1) at #1, moving the junior to 4-3. Rich Buqhuel kept the Mariners' alive with his 2-0 victory (6-2, 7-6) at #2, but it was Carlander coming through at #5 to secure the clinching point for his Bears; the senior bounced back from an opening set loss of 2-6 to even it up with a 6-4 second, and then he earned the point with a 6-1 decider to improve to 2-5.

It was a successful day for freshman Anthony Gregoire (Hagatna, Guam), who gave the Bears their fifth point by persevering at #3 for a 2-1 win (6-3, 6-7, 6-1), earning his first win of the season after shaking off a comeback defeat in the second set. Rounding out the day was Reice at #6 braving the cold, windy weather for a 2-1 victory (2-6, 6-4, 10-8) to move up to 2-1.

Bears tennis will hit the road for their next one on Saturday, April 11th, in a return to New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) action at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (8-5, 3-0 NEWMAC). The Engineers will enter the match holding 26th spot in the most recent Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) men's Division III rankings, released on Wednesday, April 8th. MIT emerged victorious from last season's meeting in New London, 6-1, with the lone Coast Guard point being a gritty, three-set singles win for Bonetto.