No. 1 Lamar Blanks No. 4 Colonels, 4-0, Advances to Championship Match
Southland Conference
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NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Top-seeded Lamar (16-5) opened up the 2016 Southland Conference Men's Tennis Tournament with a 4-0 sweep against fourth-seeded Nicholls (3-14) at the Schlief Tennis Center this morning. The Cardinals advance to the tournament's championship match to play the defending tournament champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Lamar got off to a quick start to claim wins at the No. 1 doubles and No. 2 doubles. The duo of Southland Player of the Year Michael Feucht and Benny Schweizer topped Oleksander Podgursky and Max Sinn, 6-0, while Jeandre Hoogenboezen and Nikita Lis were 6-3 winners over Sam Meessen and Bernard Wezeman. The No. 3 match of Lamar’s Juuso Laitinen and Sebastian Santibanez and Nicholl’s Evan Karatzas and Oscar Reeve was tied at 4-4 as the Cardinals clinched the point.
In singles action, Lamar finished the sweep with wins at the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 6 flights. Feucht beat Karatzas 6-1, 6-3 at No. 1 while Lis beat Podgursky 6-3, 6-3 at No. 2. Laitinen clinched the match for the Cardinals with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Kieran Cronin. Lamar teammates Schweizer, Hoogenboezen, and Santibanez had not finished their singles matches when the match was clinched.
Lamar will now face No. 2 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Sunday morning in the tournament championship match, slated for 11 a.m. The Islanders swept No. 3-seeded New Orleans, 4-0, earlier this morning.
The championship match will be rematch of the recent regular season contest that determined both team's seeding and the regular season title. During the regular season the Cardinals swept the Islanders 4-0 in Beaumont.
The winner of the Southland tournament will receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA championship.
Admission is free to all matches of the 2016 Southland Conference Women's Tennis Tournament, for more information regarding results, records and more please visit Southland.org.