BRADENTON, Fla. – For the second year in a row, the Embry-Riddle men's tennis team earned a win in the quarterfinal round of the Sunshine State Conference tournament. The 29th-ranked Eagles toppled 17th-ranked Lynn 4-3 to advance to the semifinals of the eight-team tournament and will face top-ranked Saint Leo at 10 a.m. on Friday.
 
In the first meeting of the season between Embry-Riddle and Lynn, the Fighting Knights won two of three doubles and three singles to edge the Eagles 4-3. On Thursday, it was the Eagles who won the all-important doubles point as Michele Iftimie and Lukas Schneider downed Gianmarco Amatiste and Diego Gonzalez 6-4, and Fernando Alonso and Alvaro Diaz Rodrigo held off Gabriele Felline and Yaron Guberman 7-5.
 
Lynn grabbed wins at the second, third and sixth singles positions to overtake the Eagles 2-1. In March, Gonzalez got the better of a three-set battle against Alexis Guedy. In the SSC quarterfinal, the Eagles' top-flight player rallied from a 5-7 loss in the first set to win the next two sets 6-3, 6-0 and pull the Eagles within one (3-2).
 
At the fifth spot, Diaz Rodrigo won his first set against Amatiste 7-5, and after suffering a 6-3 setback in the second, he also blanked his opponent in the third (6-0) to even the team score at 3-3.
 
The match on court five saw Schneider drop a close first set to Raymundo Chavez Baez 7-6 (3). But the ERAU senior regrouped to win the second 6-3 and took the third 6-4 to clinch the Eagle victory.