LAKELAND, Fla. -- For the third season in a row, Fire Men's Tennis put together a perfect homestand. Routing No. 22 SCAD-Savannah 4-0 in Lakeland.
The Fire's march to victory was slowed by a competitive doubles point. Pedro De La Riva and Gustavo Rubio continued their strong play together with a 6-2 victory over Adam Jaupart and Gonzalo Lopez on the top flight. However, SCAD bounced back with a flight two win over Piero Fernandez and Aristeidis Lafazanos, 6-4. Javier Gallego and Nikolas Kumria delivered the deciding flight, holding off a feisty Carson O'Hara and Yu Dian Dong, 7-5, to establish the 1-0 lead.
From there on out, it was all business as SEU got after things in a hurry. Leonardo Chiari, continued playing in place of the injured Gonzalo Fernandez, put the Fire on the board with a win by retirement over Lopez on court six, as Lopez suffered an ankle injury up 3-1.
No. 11 Gallego commanded a second consecutive dominant victory, this time over Ahmed Abdelaziz on line two, 6-1, 6-2.
Lafazanos once again playing up a court, put the nail in the coffin with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Dong.
Courts one, three, and five went unfinished. No. 23 Fernandez trailed in a tight battle with No. 12 Jaupart on the top court, trailing a set. De La Riva was in control on court three 6-1, 2-2. The freshman Kumria was again set in his winning ways, leading on court five 6-3, 2-1.
Now 14-3 on the season, the red hot No. 4 Fire set their gaze to the Sun Conference Tournament as the two-seed.
