The No. 6 Fire men's tennis (14-4, 2-1 SUN) prepares for a Sun Conference road trip, taking off to Miami Gardens for a contest versus St. Thomas University (0-6, 0-3 SUN).
The Fire head into this matchup winning four out of the past five against the Bobcats, including a victory in the Sun Conference tournament semifinals. However, the last time the Bobcats hosted the Fire, Southeastern came away winless dropping the match in 2021 5-2.
Southeastern has been a dominant force this season through the eighteen games they have played, taking #2 Keiser to the wire, and defeating top ten Xavier (La.) the day after. Up to the Keiser match the Fire were on a ten game winning streak, and have not lost since.
St. Thomas has yet to win this season as they have played an incredibly tough schedule of ranked NAIA opponents and high ranked NCAA DII competition. So they will be hungry coming into this competition.
Diego Menendez has made his mark on Fire tennis, and has not let up this season, Menendez is 14-2 on the season in line two and has won eleven singles matches in a row since dropping straight sets to #1 Georgia Gwinnett. Due to his prowess, Menendez has advanced his overall ranking from #45 to #14 in the NAIA.
Marian transfer
Mark Griffin has also impacted the Fire greatly, turning in domination in line five and six, winning 11 of his past 13 in which two matches went unfinished.
Bruno Pessoa runs the operation on line one in singles as #19 in the NAIA, and forms the #4 doubles team in the NAIA with Menendez with a 13-3 record in flight one.
Victor Olivera and
Alejandro Orihuela create flight two in doubles, ranked 49th overall with an 11-5 total record. Orihuela is 49th in singles and operates mostly in line three, but sometimes four. Olivera runs out of line four, and occasionally flips with Orihuela for line three.
Piero Fernandez and Griffin own line three in doubles as the 21st overall team in the NAIA, with only one loss the entire season, being to #1 Georgia Gwinnett. Fernandez did not have the start to the season he wanted, but has since turned it around and carries an eight game winning streak into this contest versus the Bobcats.
The first serve of the match is at 10 a.m. on Saturday, the Fire look to extend their winning streak to three and notch another conference win.
