STORRS, Conn. – The Bentley University men's tennis team got its fall season underway over the weekend at the annual UConn Invitational, and had several players impress in both singles and doubles play. Among them, senior Chase Rosa (Hampton, N.H./Berwick HS), juniors Brendan McCarthy (Falmouth, Maine/Falmouth HS) and George Samander (Willemstad, Curacao/ISC) and sophomores Brett Gilman (Mahwah, N.J./Mahwah HS) and Michael Fuca (Manchester, Mass./Manchester-Essex HS).

Six other schools were in attendance, five of which were Division I schools; the hosts UConn, Bryant, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac and Boston University, plus Bentley's Northeast-10 rival Merrimack.

Doubles featured two primary tournaments, A and B. In the A tournament McCarthy and Samander won two matches to advance to the semifinals. In the first round, they defeated Chris Toner and Arnaud Valentin of UConn 7-5, then knocked off Frank Vega and Thomas O'Brien from Merrimack in the quarterfinals by a 7-5 score as well. However, their run came to an end in the semifinals, as the team of Kei Ezaka and Julian Rozenstein from Quinnipiac advanced 6-1.

In the B tournament, Gilman and Fuca made it all the way to the finals with three victories. After a win over a split team in the first round, they bested Jorge Ortiz and Jorge Isaias Ortiz from Bryant 6-4 in the quarterfinals. Then matched up against Austin Yannone and Jackson Koke from Quinnipiac in the semifinals, Fuca and Gilman emerged 7-5 winners.

In the finals they faced another team from Quinnipiac, Ryoma Haraguchi and Patrick Cachapero, but the Division I squad took it 6-3.

Bentley's top performer in the singles tournaments came from Rosa. The senior defeated Francisco Del Valle from Sacred Heart in the quarterfinals of the B consolation tournament 8-3, before falling to Marc Sable from BU in the semis 6-3, 6-2.

With its fall season now underway, Bentley will play its first of two dual matches this fall, when the visit Nichols next Sunday.