DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The second-ranked Embry-Riddle men's tennis team capped off the 2011 regular season slate in grand fashion, toppling NCAA Division I University of Central Florida 4-3, Wednesday at the Crotty Tennis Complex. Wednesday's win marked the Eagles' first ever over the Knights (9-14)  in three tries and their second over an NCAA I opponent this season, improving their overall record to 12-6 on the year.

Peter Francis and Simon Felix defeated Eugene Dolgovykh and Matthew Zachary 8-1 at No. 2 doubles, but Blaze Schwartz and Joe DeLinks topped Chris Freeman and David Spennare 8-4 at the top doubles spot and Mitch Thams and Leonel Vivas claimed the doubles point for the Knights with an 8-4 win over Sean de la Bastide and Patrick Besch at No. 3.

Felix was the first to finish his singles match at the fourth position, blanking DeLinks 6-0, 6-0 for his fourth shutout of the season. Freeman followed closely behind with a 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Brunskog at the top singles spot, but the Knights got two points back to make the team score 3-2 in their favor when Thams downed Spennare 6-2, 6-2 on court five and Samson topped de la Bastide 6-2, 6-0 at No. 6.

With the match still undecided, the players not on the court rallied behind their teammates on courts two and three. The opponents on court three were no strangers to each other as Francis and Schwartz had done battle on two previous occasions. The first two meetings went to the UCF senior and he took an early lead in Wednesday's contest with a 7-5 decision in the first. Schwartz seemed poised to take the second set as he went up 6-5, but Francis showed tremendous resilience and although Schwartz had match point at 40-30, Francis fought back to knot the score at 6-6 and won the tie breaker 8-6 to force a decided third set.

His win in the second set swung the momentum in Francis' favor and the ERAU junior won 6-4 in the third to tie the team score at 3-3.

Following the outcome of the match at No. 3 singles, the attention shifted to the No. 2 spot where Besch and Romano were embroiled in a three-set battle of their own. Romano edged Besch 7-6 (8-6) in the first, but Besch came back to take the second 6-4 and force a third frame.  Romano went ahead 5-4 in the third and had three match points in the final game, but like his teammate before him, Besch clawed his way back to tie the score at 6-6 and force yet another tie breaker. In the end it was the freshman Besch who came out on the winning end (7-4) over the junior Romano to clinch the Eagle win.

The Eagles will be back in action on Friday when they compete in The Sun Conference tournament, which takes place at the Crotty Tennis Complex. The Eagles earned the No. 1 seed by virtue of their finish at the top of the league regular season standings, and will face No. 4 Webber International at 2 p.m.