Thursday, 03/08/2012

Liberty men's tennis player Wayne Harrell has been named as the Big South Conference's Men's Tennis Freshman of the Week, for matches during the week of Feb. 27-March 4.  The conference office announced the weekly awards this afternoon.

The honor is Harrell's second of the year, as he received the same honor for the week of Feb. 6-13.
The East Windsor, Conn., native helped the Flames produce a 2-0 record last week in Oklahoma, posting a combined 3-1 mark.

Harrell's highlight came in the Flames' 4-3 win over No. 64 Oklahoma State (Feb. 27), as the freshman provided the match-clinching win which gave the program its first win over a ranked opponent.  Harrell fell behind after dropping the opening set, 6-4, to Adolfo Aires, but recovered nicely to even the match by taking the second set 6-4.  In the deciding third set, Harrell claimed another 6-4 set to secure the team victory.

The day before, Harrell posted a 2-0 mark against Oral Roberts to help the Flames sweep the Golden Eagles, 7-0.  While he and teammate Matt Slamecka's doubles contest was defaulted, Harrell picked up a straight-set win in the No. 4 singles match against Nathaniel Avery.  The Flame only dropped one game the entire match, taking it by a 6-1, 6-0 decision.

Harrell's sole loss of the week was an 8-6 setback to Oklahoma State's No. 3 doubles duo.

Harrell is currently on a five-match singles win streak and is tied for the team lead in singles wins (6) with junior Siim Tuus.

The Flames return to action this week, facing UMBC on Wednesday and Coker College on Saturday.