MOBILE, Ala. – The Embry-Riddle men's tennis team faced a tough opponent in seventh-seeded Xavier (19-8), but the second-seeded Eagles were able to hold off the upset-minded Gold Rush 5-1 to move on to the semifinal round of the 2012 NAIA National Championship, Tuesday at the Copeland-Cox Tennis Complex. The Eagles took two of three doubles and won at the third, fourth and fifth singles positions to improve to 20-3 on the year and advance to the national semifinals for the eighth year in a row.
The Eagles got their first point at No. 2 doubles where
Chris Freeman and
J.R. Leonik served up an 8-0 shutout against Steffen Giles-Osbom and Sean Richardson. The Gold rush got a point back at No. 3 doubles where Viktor Svoboda and Corey Huggins bested
Peter Francis and
Simon Felix 8-4.
The contest at the top spot saw the top-ranked tandem of
Patrick Besch and
Adrian Bayh suffer an early 3-0 deficit to Loic Didavi and Zach Taylor. With Besch battling an illness, the Eagle pair showed its resiliency, battling back to tie the score at 5-5 and then going up a break to make the score 6-5 in ERAU's favor. The Eagles then held serve and broke the Xavier duo again to win the match 8-5 and give the Eagles a 2-1 edge.
In singles play, Besch was unable to continue resulting in a shift in the Eagle lineup. The Gold Rush continued to provide stiff competition for the Blue and Gold winning the first sets at the first, fourth and sixth positions, with the first set at No. 1 and No. 6 going to tiebreakers.
Playing at the No. 3 spot for the first time in more than a month, Bayh was the first to notch a singles win for the Blue and Gold as he downed Svoboda 6-3, 6-0 to extend the Eagle lead to 3-1.
David Spennare was next off the court, dispatching Richardson 6-2, 6-2 at the fifth position to make the team score 4-1.
After dropping the first set to Amir Rahbar 6-4, Francis rebounded to take the second frame 6-0 to force a third set tiebreaker on court four. The third set belonged to the ERAU senior who dropped just one game en route to win the match 6-1 and seal the team victory for the Eagles.
