LAKELAND â€" All three doubles matches could have gone either way, but two of them went to Florida Southern. In singles play, the Moccasins won three more matches in similar fashion, with Jorge Gutierrez eventually providing the deciding point in a 5-4 win over Auburn-Montgomery.
Florida Southern (6-8, ranked #23 in Division II) got an 8-6 win from Gutierrez and Ivan Marevic at the top doubles position and a 9-7 win from Nathan Leavitt and Charles Garneau at the number three position to take a 2-0 lead in the match. It could have easily been 3-0, as Benoit Paradis and Carl Lundberg dropped an 8-6 decision at number two doubles.
The Warhawks (7-5) tied the score at two when Nicolas Pinones defeated Paradis at the top singles flight, 6-3, 6-2, but the Moccasins got wins from Marevic and Emanuel Lueber to surge ahead once more. Marevic won in three sets, while Lueber slipped past 20th-ranked Bence Toth in a tie-breaker in set one before winning set two, 6-1.
When UAM won at both number four and five singles to tie the match at four, it fell to Gutierrez to settle the match for Florida Southern. He did so with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 win at number six singles that gave the Mocs their first win over a top-five opponent at any level since 2007, when they downed Division II #2 Lynn, 5-4.
Florida Southern will play its next match on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. when it hosts Bentley.
