LAKELAND, Fla. – The Fire battled their first NAIA ranked competition on Tuesday and continued to win. Fourth-ranked Southeastern University set the tone early in doubles play and took the first four singles matches on the way to a 5-2 victory over No. 14 Cumberland University (Tenn,) on Tuesday afternoon.
After sealing the doubles point with the first two doubles wins, SEU ran off eight wins of nine sets for victories in the opening four singles matches for the win.
Both Diego Menedez/Piero Fernandez at number one doubles and Javier Gallego/Gonzalo Fernandez in the second spot earned identical, 6-2, wins for the doubles point of the day over Cumberland's Julian Parada/Vitor Ferreira and Gabriel Godoy/Elisey Kalashnikov pairings.
In fourth singles, Alejandro Orihuela kept the Fire rolling and gave up only three games for the opening singles win over Parada (6-2, 6-1). Menendez allowed the Phoenix's Ferreira to take four games in the 6-2 and 6-2 final.
Gallego took away the distinction of taking the match-deciding win for SEU (5-0) in his straight-sets tally (6-0, 6-4) past Paul-Daniel Meyer in third singles.
Piero Fernandez gave the Fire a 5-0 lead when he came back from a set down and took a close match from Daniel Wessels (2-6, 7-6, 10-5) in second singles.
Cumberland found success in the final two singles meetings. Godoy saw Mark Griffin take the first set (4-6) before he took the middle set (6-0) and a close third (6-4). Hassan Ammar captured the other Phoenix point at sixth singles in a third-set decision (2-6, 6-2, 7-5) over Gonzalo Fernandez.
In the third doubles, Orihuela/Griffin prevailed over Meyer/Wessels in the tiebreaker, 7-6 (7-4).
The Fire return to action on Sunday when they travel to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
