Samford 5, USC Upstate 2
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. --- The Samford University men's tennis team registered a 5-2 non-conference victory against the USC Upstate Spartans on Sunday in an early-season contest held at the Samford Tennis Center.
"We came out today ready to play," said Samford head coach Rahim Esmail. "The team did a great job in the doubles point across the board. We really implemented the things that we have been focusing and working on this week, and it paid off. A lot of credit goes to USC Upstate, as the final score was not indicative of how close the match was."
Samford (2-0) jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in Sunday's contest by sweeping all three doubles matches. The Bulldogs' duo comprised of Zac Dunkle and Alexander Sajonz tallied an 8-5 victory on court No. 1, while Samford's Elliot Barnwell and Ryan Shidler fought to a 9-7 win in the No. 2 doubles showdown.
On court No. 3, the Bulldogs' Carson Kadi and Fernando Costa cruised to an 8-2 doubles triumph against USC Upstate's combination of Ramiro Blanco and Matthias Kidler.
Samford recorded four victories in singles play Sunday, with a trio coming in hard-fought, three-set battles. On court No. 2, the Bulldogs' Dunkle outlasted the Spartans' Kidler, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, while Sajonz fought from behind for a 3-6, 7-4 (4), 1-0 (9) triumph over Tyler Grove in the No. 5 singles matchup.
Barnwell, Samford's talented sophomore from Mancetter, United Kingdom, clinched the Bulldogs' victory on court No. 3 with an epic 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3 win against the Spartans' Yvon Haessig.
"USC Upstate played a great match and conducted themselves very well," Esmail said. "Elliot was able to dig deep, and did a tremendous job of gutting out that match and getting that important fourth point for us."
In the first result of singles play, Samford's Costa breezed to a 6-1, 6-2 victory against Gonzalo Blanco on court No. 4. With the win, the Bulldogs' sophomore from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, improved to 2-0 in singles play this season.
"A lot of credit goes to the play of Zac and Fernando, as Fernando took care of business from the first point, and Zac was able to pick up his level and play a dominating third set," said Esmail. "We made some great strides today and got a lot better this week as a team."
USC Upstate (1-2) dropped its second straight contest Sunday. On Saturday, the Spartans were defeated by UAB, 5-1.
The Samford University men's tennis team will next be in action Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs compete in their first road match of the season against the Troy Trojans in Troy, Ala.
College of Charleston 7, Mercer 0
College of Charleston 6, Kennesaw State 1
CHARLESTON, S.C. - The College of Charleston men's tennis team improved to 2-1 on the young spring season with a weekend sweep over Mercer, 7-0, and Kennesaw State, 6-1, in the Peach State.
The Cougars swept the doubles point convincingly on Saturday and Sunday allowing only 17 games combined against the Bears (1-3) and Owls (1-2). They were led by senior Mickael Trintignac and junior Kyle Parker, who gave up only four games over the course of two days at the top of the lineup.
"It was a very good weekend for us," CofC Head Coach Jay Bruner said. "We did a great job of getting on top of both teams early in the match and went 6-0 in doubles. I was proud of our guys and that we were able to carry out our game plan through all of our practices into our matches this weekend."
CofC swept the singles against Mercer, but not without a fight, having four of the six matches go into three sets. Sophomore Brice Allanic clinched the deciding fourth point of the match coming back from a first-set tiebreak over Joao Pagan to win out, 6-7 (7), 6-2, 6-0, at the No. 4 line.
Meanwhile, senior Tom Delme clinched the Kennesaw State match with a straight-set victory, including a love second set, over Alex Toliver, 6-4, 6-0, at No. 2 singles. Kyle Parker was the only Cougar to drop a singles match in a tough, third-set super tiebreaker against Louis Theodor, 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (8), at No. 3.
Freshman newcomer Alon Faiman made his CofC singles debut versus the Owls with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Gokalp Ozdemir at the No. 6 line. He is a top juniors lefty out of Israel with ITF Circuit experience.
Up next, the Cougars will welcome back former players to the annual CofC Alumni Match to be held on Feb. 11 beginning at 10 a.m. (ET) at the CofC Tennis Center at Patriots Point in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
UNCG 5, UNC Asheville 2
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Ahmet Sarioglu won his final six games and survived two match points, gutting out a grueling three-set match at No. 2 singles to clinch UNCG's 5-2 win over UNC Asheville at the Piedmont Indoor Tennis Center on Sunday.
After the Bulldogs (1-3) won the doubles point to get things going, UNCG (2-2) needed at least four singles wins for the team victory. With three of them in the bag, Sarioglu put the finishing touches on an impressive comeback to seal the win for the Spartans.
After dropping the first set to UNC Asheville's Matt Waissen 7-5, Sarioglu won the second set 6-4. The sophomore from Ankera, Turkey, then fell behind 5-1 in the decisive third set before running off six straight games to rally for the win. His match took more than two and a half hours to complete.
Senior Orcun Seyrek nabbed UNCG's first singles win with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Adrien Langeard at No. 1. Randy Phillips put UNCG ahead 2-1 in the match with a 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 win over Thomas Rees at No. 4.
Cameron Smith made it 3-1 with a 6-2, 6-1 win over John Schubel at No. 5, finishing a few minutes before Sarioglu despite starting more than an hour and change later.
After Sarioglu clinched it, UNCA picked up its first singles win at No. 3, where Jonas Brobeck rallied for a 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-4 win over Chanon Varapongsittikul.
UNCG's Jimmy Roueche wrapped up the match with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Greensboro native Ryan Matthews at No. 6.
In doubles play, the Bulldogs took wins at Nos. 2 and 3 after UNCG's Seyrek and Sarioglu won at No. 1. The Spartans' top duo picked up an 8-4 win over Waissen and Brobeck, but Schubel and Pete Conaty countered with an 8-3 win over Smith and Roueche at No. 3.
Langeard and Rees clinched the point with an 8-4 win over Phillips and Varapongsittikul at No. 2.
UNCG returns to action Feb. 12 at No. 58 NC State in Raleigh, N.C., for a 4 p.m. match.
Central Florida 7, Georgia Southern 0
ORLANDO, Fla. - The Georgia Southern Men's Tennis team was unable to conclude its Florida road trip on a winning note. The Eagles fell by a 7-0 score to the Knights of Central Florida on Sunday afternoon.
The Eagles (1-4) fell behind early in the match by losing the doubles point. The team of Kyle Hoffman and Matthijs Verdam persevered in a tiebreaker to take the match at No. 1 doubles, 8-7. However, Daniel Rush and Sebastien Felt were defeated 8-4 at #3 doubles, and Alain Garrido and Andrew Dromsky lost 8-3 at No. 2 doubles.
The Knights then carried the momentum of doubles into singles action. Garrido split sets for the third consecutive day before ultimately coming up short in a tiebreaker, 6-7, 6-1, 10-3. Albert Codina Sala made it close as well but fell at No. 3 singles by a score of 6-3, 6-4. The Eagles also suffered losses at the other four singles positions.
Although the Eagles lost all three matches in Florida, there were still a lot of good things to take away from the trip. "There were a lot of positives that we can take out of this weekend, but we just didn't put enough of those positives together at the same time to get some W's," said Head Coach Nick Zieziula. "We've got to get back to work this week and use these losses to fuel our drive to be better and to prepare for SoCon play in March."
The Eagles hit the road again next weekend when they travel to Greensville, North Carolina, to face Liberty and East Carolina. Matches are slated to begin at 11 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.