BRADENTON, Fla. - The Florida Southern College men's tennis team fell to Saint Leo in the quarterfinals of the Sunshine State Conference Championship tournament by a score of 1-4 on Friday afternoon at IMG Academy.
The Mocs dropped a couple of close matches in doubles competition.
Erik Nordblom and
Oscar Sohl faced off against the Lions Bruno Falletto and William Van Den Akker and fell in a tight match 4-6. The 23rd ranked pairing of
Valentin Hertweck and
Chris Fok Kow were tied up 5-5 with Vincent Theil and Brad Eidenmuller when the match was left unfinished as Saint Leo won the doubles point on court three. Brothers
Brandon Pham and
Brian Pham battled against Nicolas Bacella and Luis Iriarte as they came up just short and fell 5-7.
In singles play, the six Mocs battled hard and took four of the six matches into a third set. After a strong first set by Elliot Altman, putting up four games on Eidenmuller, Altman would fall in both sets by scores 4-6 and 1-6. Nordblom was unable to outlast Iriarte on court four, as he fell in two sets by scores 1-6, 3-6. The match was clinched for Saint Leo in the battle on court one, as no. 72 Hertweck took on no. 13 Falletto. The first set was close as Hertweck only fell by two games (5-7). Hertweck bounced back and had a huge second set win 6-2 to force a third set. After Hertweck was up 2-0 in the third set, Falletto snapped Hertweck's momentum, taking the set 3-6 and winning the match.
Brandon Pham secured the lone win for the Mocs on the day as he defeated Van Den Akker in three sets. Pham took the first set 6-4, before falling in the second set 1-6. He secured the point for the Mocs with another 6-4 win in the third.
Despite the matches going unfinished,
Chris Fok Kow and
Oscar Sohl were in very close matches that were discontinued during their third sets. On court two, Sohl faced off against Bacella, bouncing back from a 5-7 first set loss to take the second set by a score of 6-3. In the third set, Sohl only trailed by one game (2-3) before it was discontinued. Fok Kow had a huge first set win followed by a second set battle. Fok Kow dropped the tie-break 7-2 as Ghali Mensour forced the match to a third set. Fok Kow was also trailing by one game (3-4) when his match was discontinued.
Following the 4-1 loss, the Mocs fell to 10-8 on the season and 2-5 in conference play.
UP NEXT
The Mocs will await regional rankings for their place in the NCAA Tournament.
