SURPRISE, Ariz. – The Hawai'i Pacific University men's tennis team lost the last four singles flights on Thursday as Point Loma came back from a 4-1 deficit to beat HPU 5-4 in the quarterfinals of the 2018 PacWest Conference Championships at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Center.
 
The Sharks (1-13) suffered their first loss in the history of the tournament and drop into the consolation semifinal, while the Sea Lions (14-7) advance to the championship semifinal on Friday.
 
The match came down to No. 1 singles, where HPU's Maxime Gayte took set one 6-3 over PLNU's 34th ranked Thomas Dafcik, who answered with a 6-4 win in the second set. The third set went back-and-forth, with Gayte holding a 5-4 lead late, only to have Dafcik rally to make it 6-5. Gayte won the next game to tie it at 6-all and send the deciding set to a tiebreaker. That's when the 34th ranked Dafcik fought off Gayte to win the tiebreaker 7-4, the point and the match for Point Loma.
 
The day started with promise for the Sharks, as they took two of the three doubles points for an early lead. HPU also claimed the first two singles points for a 4-1 advantage.
 
The Sharks took No. 1 doubles as Gayte and Gerardo Irrarrazabal beat Brendon Millington and Jack Alston 8-4, but fell at No. 2 doubles as Dafcik and Yuki Okamoto beat HPU's Benjamin Loccisano and Juan Erro 8-3.
 
HPU took the early lead when No. 3 doubles came in with Jack Lyttle and Adrian Elduque chalking up an 8-5 victory over Grant Alston and CJ Erion.
 
The Sharks opened the lead up to 4-1 as Loccisano made quick work of Millington 6-3, 6-3 at No. 2 and Erro pulled off a 6-2, 6-4 triumph over Alston at No. 4.
 
HPU had two other first set leads, but those turned into splits, but the Sharks also split another flight.
 
The Sea Lions won at No. 6 as Tim Soderman beat Elduque 6-4, 6-4 to make it 4-2.
 
The first three-setter finished at No. 3, where Yuki defeated Irrarrazabel 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
 
At No. 5 singles, HPU's Lyttle lost his first set to Erion 6-4, then flipped it for a 6-4 win to head to the third. However Erion came away with the 6-3 win and pulled PLNU within one at 4-4.
 
That left only the top of the singles where the Sharks heartbreak was completed.
 
HPU drops into the consolation bracket with the loss to face Holy Names on Friday at 10:30 a.m. HST (1:30 p.m. MST).