NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- The nationally-ranked Christopher Newport men's tennis team captured a 6-3 win over No. 26 Mary Washington on Wednesday evening, picking up a pivotal victory over the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference foe. The Captains (8-6) snapped a seven-match losing streak to the Eagles and earned the first regular season win over the nationally-ranked rival since 2010. 

CNU earned the program's first-ever win against Mary Washington on March 31, 1998 before waiting until the same date in 2010 to capture the second, 5-4, in Newport News. The only other win before Wednesday came in 2017 when Christopher Newport unseated the Eagles as conference champs in the Capital Athletic Conference title bout, 5-3. 

The Captains positioned themselves for the top seed in the upcoming Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference Championship Tournament with wins against UC Santa Cruz, Salisbury, and Mary Washington during the season. In Wednesday's victory, Christopher Newport took a 2-1 lead after doubles before winning four of six singles matches to pull away for a 6-3 win. 

Ashton Legum notched the match-clinching win at No. 6 singles, downing Ryan Meyer in straight sets (6-4, 6-4), to give the Captains an insurmountable 5-2 lead. 

CNU got two victories from Alec Strause and Vincent Truong on Wednesday. Strause won at No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles while Truong won at No. 5 singles and No. 2 doubles. 

On the top line of doubles play, Strause and Nesh Kumaresan continued their impressive run, winning the ninth straight match together while improving to 13-1 on the season. The CNU duo defeated Peter Leese and Rishi Charan Shankar (8-5) to get the Captains on the board. Truong paired with Ahun Vodela at No. 2 and faced Brock Ladehoff and Andrew Watson; the Captains tandem secured an 8-6 win and propelled CNU into singles play up 2-1. 

Truong's second win came against Leese at No. 5 and also came in straight sets (6-2, 6-1). Rookie Jake Dolphin outlasted Ladehoff (7-5, 6-3) at No. 3 and Strause earned a hard-fought wina t No. 2 against Andrew Watson (3-6, 6-2, 6-3). 

Christopher Newport will travel for a pair of matches this weekend, takon on the Fords of Haverford at 2:00 p.m. on Friday before moving on to Johns Hopkins on Saturday at 2:00 pm.