GREENVILLE, S.C. - The College of Charleston (16-3, 10-0) men's tennis team completed its undefeated run to the Southern Conference regular season title in thrilling fashion as the Cougars earned a 4-3 victory over defending champion Furman (11-10, 7-1) on Thursday, April 15. It is the second such title for the program, matching the feat of the 2003 team.
The day did not start out near as well as it finished for the Cougars as Furman came out and earned the doubles point by taking two of three matches. Jordan Walters and Andrei Chvetsov earned a convincing 8-2 victory at No. 2 doubles before Sawyer Duncan and Chris Motes locked up the doubles point with an 8-4 win over junior Lukas Koncilia and sophomore Tom Delme. Sophomore Mickael Trintignac and junior Mickael Boyer notched an 8-5 decision for the Cougars at the No. 3 position to prevent the sweep but the damage was already done.
The Paladins continued their strong play as singles competition began. Tyler Droll claimed a 6-2, 6-4 decision over sophomore John Harden at No. 6 to push the lead to 2-0 before freshman Kyle Parker got the College of Charleston on the board with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Andrew Mellow at the fifth spot.
Trintignac then tied the match at 2-2 with a hard fought 6-4, 6-4 win over Motes at the No. 2 position but Furman would not go quietly. Carl Lundberg defeated Delme 7-5, 6-7, 6-2 at No. 3 to give the Paladins back the lead at 3-2. After dropping the first set 5-7 to Walters at No. 4, Boyer rallied for a pair of 6-4 decisions in sets two and three to knot the score at 3-3 and set up a battle for the conference title between the teams two best players, Koncilia and Duncan.
At the No. 1 spot, Koncilia managed a 7-5 victory in the first set before Duncan pulled out a 6-3 decision in Set 2. That left one set to determine the match, and for the Cougars, a championship. A back-and-forth affair, that final set came down to a tiebreaker that Koncilia pulled out 7-4 to claim a 7-6 victory in the biggest match of his career.
That victory gave the College of Charleston its first Southern Conference regular season title since the 2003 team won both the regular season and the tournament titles. The victory also guarantees that the Cougars will be the No. 1 seed in the 2010 Southern Conference Tournament at the CofC Tennis Center at Patriots Point from April 24-25.
CofC will face the No. 4 seed at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 24. The winner of that match will move on to face either the second or third seed at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 25 for tournament championship.