BOX SCORE

CONWAY, SC- The Eagles men's tennis team dropped their regular season finale on the road to Coastal Carolina this Sunday afternoon in a hard fought 5-2 contest.

With the regular season behind them, the Eagles finish up the year with a 9-12 overall record and a 5-3 Big South Conference record.  All eyes are now set on the upcoming conference tournament which will be hosted by Winthrop University this coming Thursday, April 18^th to Saturday, April 20^th.  Winthrop has earned the 4^th seed in this year's Big South Conference Championship and will square-off against Radford University in the first round on Thursday, April 18^th at 10 a.m.

Coastal was able to come away with all three doubles wins in what was perhaps the most tightly contested doubles round of the season.  With Yuta Hirokawa out of today's lineup due to active rest for the upcoming conference tournament, the freshman duo that usually defends the No. 3 doubles position had to slide up to the No. 2 spot.  Corey Decandia (Adelaide, Australia) and Juan Pablo Boada (La Paz, Bolivia) held their own against Coastal's Karle and Christofides but couldn't capitalize in the end as they fell 9-7.  Down match points on court No. 3, freshman Steven Patrick (Knoxville, Tennessee) came up with a big serving performance to force a match tiebreaker for him and his freshman counterpart Michael Chen (Johnson City, Tennessee).  After experiencing several momentum shifts in the tiebreak, Coastal's tandem of Nilsson and Kusuda managed to scrape out the breaker 7-5 to seal the match 9-8.  No. 1 doubles finished up in a similar fashion as the Eagle sophomores of Dylan Comerford (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Peter Nagovnak (Kraubath, Austria) came up short in their match tiebreak by the same score 9-8(5).

The Eagles got up a break of serve on multiple courts to start off the singles round.  Comerford was in control of his match against Leo Christofides when he suddenly suffered an injury to his right ankle.  Comerford was forced to retire adding the second point to Coastal's match scorecard.  Now down two starters, the Eagles regrouped and responded quickly to show the Chanticleers that they weren't going to lay down for them.  Patrick provided hope for the Eagles with a dominating 6-3, 6-2 performance over Coastal's Hunter Whalen at the No. 6 position.  Boada then dropped a hard-fought 6-4, 6-3 battle to Garik Yedigarian at the No. 3 spot.  Chen enjoyed a flawless first set as he didn't lose a single game against Coastal's Matias Di Pasquale.  But with Chen unable to duplicate his first set performance, Di Pasquale took over and captured the second and third sets by a score of 6-2 to seal the match victory for the Chanticleers.  Serving for the first set at 5-4, freshman No. 2 Ivar Aramburu (Puebla, Mexico) was unable to close it out and ended up dropping the set 7-5.  Determined to get the win for the Eagles, Aramburu turned his match into a long-distance run; constantly wearing down Coastal's Yusuke Kusuda point after point.  After taking the second set 6-4, Kusuda was forced to retire due to fatigue rewarding Aramburu with his 6^th singles victory in a row.  After losing the first set 6-4 at the No. 4 position, Nagovank was able to use his superior serve and volley skills to help him draw even at a set a piece.  However, Coastal's Ted Nilsson put a stop to the momentum shift as he neutralized Nagovnak's game plan and took the final set 6-2.