A successful regular season and conference tournament led to an 18-6 overall record and a perfect 11-0 at home for the Southeastern men's tennis team. The Fire head to Mobile, Ala. the home of the NAIA National Tournament where they are seeded seventh.
The Fire wait on the winner of the contest between #10 William Woods and #23 Morningside.
Southeastern is home to two ranked individuals and two ranked teams.
Diego Menendez ranks 18th in singles play with a 15-4 overall record in line two,
Bruno Pessoa lands 37th in the rankings, running line one all season long and finishing the season with a 9-6 record. When asked about the opportunity to play in the NAIA National Tournament, Menendez mentioned, "It is really special, it's huge for us to be seeded number seven and get a first round bye, and potentially play a team we lost to in indoors this year."
The team he speaks of is William Woods who the Fire met once already this season, falling to the Owls 4-2 in the final match the Fire played in the ITA Nationals fifth-place match.
In the match against William Woods, Southeastern took the doubles round with Pessoa and Menendez earning a hard fought clinching win over the #15 Ben Grumley and Zinovii Nahirniak 6-4. However, the Owls took over singles winning three matches in three sets, even though Menendez was able to knock off #14 Nahirniak. The final blow came with Pessoa falling in three to #11 Vaclav Schnieder.
Doubles sees the Fire with one of the top three doubles teams in the NAIA. Pessoa and Menendez band together as the #3 team running the entire season as the flight one team with a 15-6 record, and
Mark Griffin and
Piero Fernandez who form flight three rank 38th overall with a record of 15-4.
Line three has fluctuated between
Alejandro Orihuela and
Victor Olivera with Orihuela operating the line more predominantly towards the end of the season. Olivera and Orihuela also band together in flight two of doubles play. Orihuela currently holds a record of 12-2, and 11-7 in doubles, Olivera is 5-8 and 11-8 in doubles having played with Fernandez against Georgia Gwinnett.
Fernandez and Griffin stand on impressive individual records to match their doubles record. Fernandez is 15-5 playing mostly at line five, and Griffin mainly operates in line six, holding a 15-4 record.
In the 12 ranked matches the Fire have played, their record is 7-5, most impressively winning 6-1 over #9 Middle Georgia State at home. "Mobile is always super humid, super hot, so we just want to be as fit and make this as physical as possible," said coach
Drew Dickens. "Regardless of who we are playing or what round it is, we just want to be able to last all day on the court".
William Woods has to play Tuesday against #23 Morningside to see the Fire once again. The Owls finished the regular season ranked 11th in the NAIA, and are fresh off of a conference tournament victory with a 17-5 record.
Vaclav Schneider is a dominant force in the NAIA, ranking fourth overall among singles players with a 22-2 record. Nahirniak is the only other singles player ranked for the Owls, landing at 33rd with a 16-7 overall record.
The aforementioned pair of Grumley and Nahirniak now rank fourth overall in the NAIA with a 15-4 record as the only doubles pair ranked for the Owls.
The Owls have played both the Fire and Morningside this season already with wins over both, 5-2 over Morningside and 4-2 over Southeastern. Alongside these two wins, William Woods has competed against six ranked teams thus far this season and come away 3-3 after those contests.
Morningside finished the regular season 18-4, ranked just outside the Top 25, and with a conference tournament championship. The Mustangs have only played one ranked team all season, and that was the Owls of William Woods who they will see on May 14 at 10 a.m.
The Mustangs Mark Trenkle won player of the year for the Great Plains Athletic Conference.
Among the six teams in the Fire's quadrant of the bracket are #2 Tennessee Wesleyan (19-1), #15 Lindsey Wilson (14-5), and #18 McPherson (14-4).
Each and every game is played at the same time over the course of the tournament, the Fire will play first on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
