PENSACOLA, Fla. - A lot of college students love to head to Florida for spring break. The Tennessee Tech tennis teams are no different. Both teams played a match against Div. II powerhouse West Florida. The men picked up a 4-3 win over the no. 9 ranked Argos while the women fell 6-1.
"We played both matches very tough," said head coach
Dan Silverstein. "While our women lost, they were in every point on every court. The men played some extremly good tennis to beat a team on the caliber of West Florida."
The men got things started a little rough loosing the doubles point.
Sophomores Dean O'Brien and Josh Girling got the lone victory at the top doubles spot 9-7 over Andrey Pozhidaey and Nathan Rosenfeld. The number two and three doubles matches came down to the last game with the Golden Eagles falling 6-8 at number two while going to a tie-breaker at number three 8-9 (5-7).
Singles however would be the strong point for Tech as Tech won four of the six singles matches to clinch the win.
O'Brien, who remains undefeated this spring, picked up a straight sets win over Poshidaey, 6-2, 6-1. Freshman Alex Chen picked up his win at the number two slot over No. 50 Patrick Bateman, 6-2, 6-2. While fellow freshman Oscar Pachon picked up another straight sets win at number five, sophomore Mario Gutierrez had a little tougher time at nubmer six with a three set win over Mike Lue, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
"We had a good week of practice before this match," Silverstein said. "The guys really wanted this win and their performance proved that.
The women's tennis team had a litle bit rougher time in the sunshine state, falling to the number six ranked team in Div. II.
The Argos swept through doubles matches to stake the early lead. Sophomore
Katie Barnhill and
Kelly Holtzhausen fell to the No. 24 ranked doubles duo of Suzana Cavalcante and Paulina Ojeda, 8-5.
Barnhill picked up the win at the top singles spot in straight sets, giving up only three games during the entire match, 6-0, 6-3.
The Tech men (2-4) will next be in action when they travel to ACC foe Georgia Tech on March 17 with match time at 2 p.m. The Tech women (1-3) will have one more day between matches when they will travel to UT Chattanooga for a double duel-match against the Mocs with the men on March 18. Match time for both matches against UTC is slated for 12 p.m.
