LAKELAND - Florida Southern continued its 10-match homestand here Friday afternoon by suffering an 8-1 defeat to No. 3 ranked Lynn in Sunshine State Conference action at the Wynee Warden Tennis Center on the FSC campus.
With the setback, the 22nd-ranked Moccasins fall to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the SSC, while Lynn improves to 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the SSC.
The Fighting Knights, who are the No. 2 ranked team in the latest ITA TennisSouth Region rankings, opened Friday's match by winning all three doubles matches. LU picked up an 8-4 and 8-1 win at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots respectively, but its nationally fourth-ranked No. 1 team of Willi Wolfer and Vlad Cirla were challenged by FSC's No. 1 team of junior Benoit Paradis (Quebec City, Quebec) and sophomore Emanuel Lueber (Tiengen, Germany) as the LU team held on for a 9-8 victory to sweep all three of the doubles matches.
Meanwhile in the singles play, the Mocs secured their only win of the day at the No. 2 spot as Paradis upset Cirla, who entered the match ranked 17th in Division II in singles, in straight sets as Paradis won the first set, 6-2 and then picked up a 6-3 win in the second set. It was the first time since April 18, 2008 that the Mocs had earned a point against Lynn as in that match on April 18, the Mocs earned two points to fall 5-2 to Lynn in a 2008 SSC Tournament match.
Three of the five other singles matches on Friday were decided in straight sets, except at the No. 3 spot and No. 1 spot. Those two matches needed a third-set tiebreaker to decide things.
At the No. 1 spot, Lueber went toe-to-toe with No. 4 ranked Wolfer as he opened with a 6-2 win in the first set, before Lueber picked up a 6-4 win in the second set. In the third set tiebreaker, Wolfer would prevail 10-5, while at the No. 3 spot, junior Nathan Leavitt (Bradenton, Fla.) battled Max Kouyate to the end as Kouyate picked up a 6-4 win in the first set, before Leavitt won 6-4 in the second set. Kouyate would take the match by posting a 10-3 win in the third set tiebreaker.
The Mocs homestand will continue on March 11 as they host Wayne State [MI] in a 3 p.m. non-conference match at the Wynee Warden Tennis Center.
