ST. PETERSBURG - Florida Southern earned its first Sunshine State Conference win here Friday afternoon as the 22nd-ranked Moccasins defeated Eckerd 8-1 at the Bullard Tennis Center on the EC campus.
With the victory, the Mocs improved to 3-2 overall on the season and 1-1 in the SSC, while Eckerd fell to 0-2 overall and 0-2 in league play.
The Mocs opened Friday's match by winning all three doubles matches, including its seventh-ranked No. 1 doubles team of sophomore Emanuel Lueber (Tiengen, Germany) and junior Benoit Paradis (Quebec City, Quebec) winning 8-1 over EC's No. 1 team of Dylan Randazzo and Stephen Felman. The Mocs other two doubles teams won by scores of 8-2 and 8-3.
Meanwhile, in singles play, the Mocs won five of the six matches with the only setback coming at the No. 1 as Lueber, who is ranked 34th nationally and 11th in the South Region, fell to Randazzo in a third set tiebreaker. Randazzo won the first set, 6-3, but Lueber came back to win the second set, 6-0, but Randazzo would hang on for a 10-8 in the third set tiebreaker.
In the other five singles matches, the Mocs allowed just five points overall, including junior Vladimir Barabash (Puhovka, Ukraine) winning 6-0, 6-0 at the No. 4 spot and sophomore Carl Lundberg (Stocksund, Sweden) winning 6-0, 6-0 at the No. 6 spot.
The Mocs will return to action on Sunday, Feb. 17 as they host fourth-ranked Barry in a 10 a.m. SSC match at the Wynee Warden Tennis Center.
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