MOBILE, Ala. - After being ousted in the semifinal round of the NAIA National tournament in each of the last seven seasons, the Embry-Riddle men's tennis team finally broke through courtesy of a 5-4 win over defending national champion Auburn Montgomery, Friday at the Mobile Tennis Center. In arguably the most exciting match of the season, the Eagles earned two wins in doubles and three in singles in the four-hour, 52-minute match to improve their overall record to 17-6.

The Eagles got off to a fast start in doubles play as Peter Francis and Simon Felix easily handled Philipp Mohr and Bence Toth 8-2 on the third doubles court. At the top doubles spot, Chris Freeman and Jan Hoekzema extended the Eagle cushion to 2-0 with an 8-5 defeat of Boris Obama and Loic Didavi. The Senators got a point back when Bruno Savi and Claudio Andrade held off Adrian Bayh and Patrick Besch at the No. 2 spot.

AUM added another point to its tally when Andrade bested Bayh 6-1, 6-0 at No. 6 singles, but Felix answered for the Eagles with a straight set win of his own, downing Zino Jouini 6-1, 6-0 at the fifth spot. After Didavi pulled the Senators level with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Francis at No. 4, Hoekzema put the Eagles back on top with a 6-3, 6-3 decision against Obama at No. 2, but the lead was short-lived as Toth overcame a first set loss to ERAU's Besch to win his match at No. 3 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.

All the attention then shifted to Court No. 1 where Freeman and Savi were engaged in what turned out to be a three-hour long battle. Freeman had the early lead but Savi battle back to tie the score at 6-6 and had the momentum early in the tie-breaker, scoring the first six points for a 6-0 advantage. Undaunted, Freeman rattled off six unanswered points of his own, but Savi managed to hold on, winning the tie-breaker 8-6 to take a one-set lead.

In the second set each player held on their first four service games, resulting in a 4-5 deadlock. Savi then broke Freeman to go up 5-4 and had three team match points in the next game, but Freeman fought back to hold serve and then broke Savi to go up 6-5. The ERAU sophomore then served out the set, winning 7-5 to force a decisive third stanza.

Buoyed by his second-set win and with his teammates standing behind him and lending support on every point, a confident Freeman began play in the third set. He gained an early advantage after breaking Savi in his second service game and registered another break point en route to a 6-3 third set win, giving the Eagles their first ever berth in the tournament finale.

The seeding has held true throughout the tournament with the top four teams advancing to the semifinal round. The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds will play for the national title as the second-seeded Eagles will take on No. 1 Fresno Pacific at 10 a.m. (CST) on Saturday.