Grizzly Head Coach Chase Hodges called it one of the biggest regular season victories in school history as his top-ranked and defending NAIA champion Georgia Gwinnett men's tennis team dealt a 5-3 loss to defending NCAA Division II national champion West Florida at Ralph "Skeeter" Carson Tennis Complex.
April 5, 2015
PENSACOLA, Fla. - Grizzly Head Coach Chase Hodges called it one of the biggest regular season victories in school history as his top-ranked and defending NAIA champion Georgia Gwinnett men's tennis team dealt a 5-3 loss to defending NCAA Division II national champion West Florida at Ralph "Skeeter" Carson Tennis Complex.
"We needed to get a win like this," Hodges said. "To go out and beat one of the best teams in the country in a hostile environment is something that the team will be able to draw from as we go into these last five weeks of the season. We want to be playing our best tennis when we get to Mobile, and getting a win like this will give the team even more confidence going forward."
The win, which saw GGC improve to 11-2, marked the first this season against a program ranked in the top three in DII as the Green and Gray fell in nail-biters to No. 1 Hawaii Pacific on Friday and at No. 3 Barry last month.
"I really think that our experiences from the Hawaii Pacific and Barry matches played a big part in us beating West Florida today," Hodges said. "Those matches could have gone either way, and we were better today because it was a situation that the guys had been in before."
West Florida dropped to 20-3 on the season, with the other two losses coming via razor-thin decisions to HPU.
After Saturday's previously scheduled morning match with Valdosta State was called off due to inclement weather, the team experienced a less than ideal beginning to its showdown with UWF, falling in two of the three doubles spots.
Matias Hatem and Connor Clements were the first to wrap up, coasting to an 8-2 decision over Pablo Tellez and Pablo Borerro at No. 3. The Australian GGC duo of Lachlan McPhee and Luke Morland dropped a line one 8-3 decision to Warren Kuhn and Elio Latella, the No. 1 doubles team in DII, and the tandem of Jordan Cox and Kevin Konfederak fell 8-5 to Alex Peyrot and Kenny Brasil.
The Argonaut advantage would prove short-lived as GGC immediately went to work in singles, beginning with McPhee, who bounced back from the first dual match loss of his career with a 6-4, 6-0 decision over Latella at No. 5. Cox, the No. 2 player in the NAIA, kept it going with a 6-4, 6-2 win at the top line, beating Peyrot, who began the day as the No. 9 DII player in the nation.
Fifth-ranked Konfederak put GGC within in a point of clinching with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Kuhn, who was ranked 25th, but UWF's put an end to the singles run with a 6-4, 7-6 victory against Tony Licata at No. 6 to make it 4-3.
Clements, who dropped his opening set on Court 4, made up for it by notching a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Borerro to clinch the match for the Green and Gray.
In the day's other singles match, Hatem and Brasil were tied at 2-2 in the third set when the match was called.
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