DELAND - Florida Southern opened its 2015 spring men's tennis season here on Super Bowl Sunday with a 7-0 setback against NCAA Division I foe Stetson University at the Mandy Stoll Tennis Center on the Stetson campus.
The Moccasins, who were playing their first dual meet of the spring season, opened the match by dropping all three of the doubles matches to help give Stetson (1-1 on the season) the doubles point. Sunday's match was played by Division I rules as the three doubles matches counted as one point and a team must win 2-of-3 matches to earn the point.
In doubles play, two of the matches were decided by identical 6-3 scores as FSC's No. 1 team of sophomore Fabian Lundberg (Akersberga, Sweden) and freshman Derek Bell (Creve Coeur, Mo.) lost to Stetson's No. 1 tandem of Laurynas Antropikas and Kevin Gonzalez, while the No. 3 team of freshmen Arthur Viallaneix (Apopka, Fla.) and Brian Slivonik (Oyster Bay, N.Y) fell to Stetson's tandem of Loic Blanco and Simon Julin. The Mocs No. 2 team of senior Charles Garneau (L'ancienne-Lorette, Quebec) and sophomore Laurent Mailloux (Montreal Canada), who are tied for 10th in the Preseason ITA Tennis South Region doubles player rankings, fell 6-1 to Nathan Debut and Chester Espie.
Meanwhile, in singles action, Lundberg was the only Moc to take a set off of a Hatter player as he posted a 6-4 win in the second set at No. 2 singles over Antropikas, before falling in a tiebreaker, 7-6 (10-6) in the third set. Antropikas won the first set, 6-0.
In addition to Lundberg's strong play at the No. 2 spot, Viallaneix managed to win seven games off of Graham Bell at the No. 3 spot as he fell, 6-4, 6-3, while freshman Blaine Miller (Orlando, Fla.) took five games at the No. 6 spot over Espie as he fell 6-4, 6-1.
Stetson opened singles play by earning wins at No. 5 and No. 1 and sealed the match victory with Espie's win at the No. 6 spot.
The Mocs will continue its fall season on Friday, Feb. 14 as they travel to St. Augustine for a 2 p.m. match against 26th-ranked Flagler. FSC's first home match of the spring season is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18 as they host 14th-ranked Saint Leo in a 3 p.m. Sunshine State Conference match at the Wynee Warden Tennis Center on the FSC campus.
