LAKELAND â€" Emanuel Lueber and Benoit Paradis staked #29 Florida Southern to an early lead Wednesday with a win at number one doubles, and Paradis also earned a win at number two singles, but #15 Saint Leo took the other seven points to down the Moccasins 7-2.
Lueber (Tiengen, Germany) and Paradis (Quebec City, QB) won their match over Bruno Sisti and Matt Nicholson-Lewis, 8-3, before the Lions won the next two doubles points in a pair of hard-fought matches. One of those went to a tie-breaker, with Jake Fleischer and Ismail Lemtouni edging Vladimir Barabash (Puhovka, Ukraine) and Nathan Leavitt (Bradenton, FL), 9-7. That gave Saint Leo (7-3, 2-2 Sunshine State Conference) a 2-1 lead going into singles play.
Paradis then evened the score for Florida Southern (3-5, 1-4) with a 6-1, 6-0 win against Sisti at number two singles. Lemtouni, however, put Saint Leo ahead to stay with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Barabash at the fourth flight.
Aloua Adjenak, ranked #21 individually in Division II, clinched the match for Saint Leo with a 6-3, 6-3 win over 34th-ranked Lueber at the top singles flight.
Florida Southern, which has played three straight matches against top-20 teams from the SSC, will step outside the conference for its next match on Monday, March 11, against Wayne State (MI) at 3:00 p.m.
