ROME, Ga. The USA South Athletic Conference Men's Tennis Tournament got started on Thursday afternoon at the Rome Tennis Center. Methodist men's tennis, the #4 seed of the East, squared off against the top seeded team of the West, Covenant College, and the Monarchs upset the Scots in a close 5-4 match.
JUST THE FACTS
Final scores: Methodist def. Covenant, 5-4
Records: Methodist 11-9, Covenant 12-6
Locations: Rome Tennis Center; Rome, Georgia
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Methodist went up 2-0 during the double flights. First the tandem of Henry Murray & Luke Laney easily handled Gill Dunn & Ethan Gibson, 8-1, followed by Jordan Theron & Quinn McNamara beating Solomon Crouch & Austin Dreslinski, 8-4.
- Covenants lone doubles victory came in No.3 match, where Ben Luke & Camden Lashley were able to defeat Harrison Bitzberger & AJ Rogers.
- The Monarchs found themselves with a 3-1 advantage after Theron won his match over Dreslinski 6-1 in both sets, of No.1 singles. The next flight to finish was the No.4 match, as Laney fell to Crouch 6-3, 6-2.
- The next two flights would go to the Scots with Cameron Cortman winning against Spencer Kieft 6-0, 7-5 in No.6 singles, and Rogers losing to Dunn 6-1, 6-4 in No.5 singles. This gave Covenant a 4-3 lead in the match.
- McNamara knotted the match score, 4-4, after getting the victory in No.3 singles over Gibson 6-2, 7-5. The only flight left playing was No. 2 singles which featured Henry Murray vs. Ben Luke.
- The first set between the two was so tightly contest, 6-6, that it was forced to go into a tie breaker, where Murray edged out Luke 10-8 to take one. Murray than went on to clinch his flight and the match for Methodist by winning the second set 6-3.
UP NEXT
Methodist moves on to the semifinals to play the #2 of the East, Averett University on Friday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. at the Rome Tennis Center Courts.
