The men’s tennis team defeated South Carolina State 4-3 on Sunday, March 18, winning five out of its last six matches, and built considerable momentum heading into conference play.
Drew Lahey and Bryan Triana got the Owls out to a hot start, defeating their Bulldogs doubles opponents in a 6-2 scoreline. Soon after, senior Corey Smith featured alongside Harrison Wood in a doubles victory, also winning 6-2 to secure the doubles point for the team.
As the singles matches began, freshman Triana helped power the Owls ahead. After getting through the first set 6-3, Triana blanked his opponent 6-0 in the second set.
Fermin Calvo Barcelo had a more difficult match on his hands, being taken to a tiebreaker in the first set and winning it 7-3. He then beat his opponent in the second set 6-1 to give the owls a 3-0 advantage early on.
The Bulldogs refused to give in, taking the next three matchups to tie the overall score at 3-3.
Lahey and Harrison Wood took both of their singles matches to three sets. Lahey took the second set of his match after dropping the first but fell 6-3 in the final set to lose out. Wood took his match to a third-set tiebreaker but dropped it 7-4.
Smith played a two-set match, narrowly falling in the first set 6-4 before coming up just short in a second-set tiebreaker. After going down 6-4 in his first set, Lucas de Torres Curth fought through two difficult sets and took them both 7-5.
Losing its first five matches of the year, the men’s tennis team has improved its record over the last month to 5-6. The Owls will begin conference play at home this upcoming weekend, hosting Lipscomb on Saturday, March 24, before playing Gardner-Webb March 25.
