ST AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Sweet victory.
The No. 6 Flagler College men's tennis team will be making the program's debut in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Division II Men's Tennis Championships after handing No. 7 the University of North Georgia a 4-0 defeat in the NCAA Southeast Regional at the Flagler Tennis Center Tuesday afternoon.
This serves as yet another program first under the direction of first-year head coach
Jonas Piibor, including the team's first Peach Belt Conference regular-season title and hosting the regional tournament. Flagler, who owns an 18-5 record, will put that on the line next week in Altamonte Springs, Florida in a gathering of the best teams in all the land.
The opening trio of doubles matches were as competitive as one would expect from a regional match. Second-seeded Flagler got a win at first singles, with No. 17
Oscar Del Granado and
Philipp Lemken defeating third-seeded UNG's Zach Waldow and Joaquin Benoit, 6-2, on court one.
The clinch point came down to a battle on courts two and three. Court two featured
Nikita Tatyanin and
Jagger Ong-Patzwald representing Flagler and Daniel Ostap and Ryan Gaskin repping the Nighthawks, while on three the Saints'
Petr Cervinka and
Jacopo Denitto were facing off against Giulio Sassi and Cole Brainard. Cervinka and Denitto got a late break in their match to secure a 6-4 win, and the 1-0 match lead. The second doubles match stopped at 5-4 in favor of UNG.
The ensuring singles matches featured all players grinding out their matches with the season on the line. Cervinka gave the team a 2-0 lead following a 6-1, 6-3 win on court three, his 16th win of the campaign.
No. 40 Del Granado defeated No. 10 Benoit for a second time this year, 6-2, 6-0, with an improvement from the first time these two foes met (6-3, 6-0), to move the team one point away from punching its ticket to Altamonte Springs.
The remaining matches were No. 37 Tatyanin at second singles, Lemken at fourth, Denitto at fifth and
Diego Amilibia at sixth, who played in his first singles match since Georgia College on April 3.
Tatyanin would be the one to earn the coveted fourth point, coming away with a victory over the Nighthawks' Gaskin, 6-4, 6-3. Lemken was in a third set after serving his opponent a bagel in the first set, 6-0, but droped set two 6-2 and was down 2-1 in the third. Denitto was on the verge of forcing a third set on court five, 6-4, 5-1 while Amilibia was down 6-4, 4-3 on court six.
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