MOBILE, Ala. – For the second time in three years, the Embry-Riddle men's tennis team will play for a national title. The top-seeded Eagles earned a spot in the 2013 NAIA National Championship match with a 5-0 defeat of No. 4 Westmont, Friday at the Mobile Tennis Center. The Eagles are now 23-2 on the year and will take on Auburn Montgomery in the championship match at 10 a.m. (CDT) on Saturday.

The Eagles started off the match with a pair of doubles wins as Simon Felix and Kevin Chaouat downed Luka Zielen and Travis Kimsey 8-4 at the third position, and top-ranked Chris Freeman and Deni Zmak bested second-ranked Tim Goranson and John Bertram 8-3 at the top spot.

At No. 2 doubles, ERAU's Patrick Besch and Anthony Grasso and Westmont's 14th-ranked pair of Rodrigo Schaefer and Joshua Barnard went back and forth with neither team leading by more than one game. Down 7-6, the Eagle tandem broke the Westmont pair and then held serve to go up 8-7, but Schaefer and Barnard won their next service game to force a tiebreaker. After dropping two of the first three points, Besch and Grasso rattled off six unanswered to register their first doubles win together (9-8 (7-2)) and give the Eagles a 3-0 advantage heading into singles.

In singles, the Eagles won first sets on five of the six courts, and five of the six held comfortable leads in their respective second frames. As was the case in Thursday's quarterfinal, the first matches off the court were at the No. 5 and No. 6 positions. Felix was the first to finish his match at the fifth spot as he dispatched Zielen 6-2, 6-2 to put the Eagles up 4-0. Next door, on court six, Spennare was matched evenly with Nicholas Szyndlar to start his match, resulting in a 4-4 tie through the first eight games. Spennare registered a break and a hold to take the first set 6-4 and easily won the second 6-1 to improve his dual match record in 2013 to a team-best 22-0 and clinch the victory for the Blue and Gold.
 
“The guys played well today,” ERAU Head Coach Dave Paschal said. “We really jumped out at one and three doubles and that set a tone of encouragement for the rest of team to play aggressively. It was nice to see two doubles get their first win together. They played really well, fighting back in that tough eight-game pro set.

"The strength of our team has been singles all the way down to six and Simon and Dave came up big again and won their matches. It was a big day for us and now we go get ready for tomorrow, which should be a really good, hard match against AUM. We're looking forward to a great match.”

For the first time tin tournament history the championship match will be streamed live through the NAIA's partnership with NeuLion. Click here for the live streaming link.