The Oglethorpe University men's tennis team travelled to
Birmingham, Alabama this weekend and won three out of four matches
against SCAC competition. The Petrels lost a tough match against
host Birmingham-Southern (5-4) on Friday to begin the four
match stretch but rallied to top both Millsaps (5-2) and
Southwestern (7-2) on Saturday and closed the weekend with a win
over Centre (7-2) on Sunday morning.
The weekend began with the narrow defeat at the hands of No. 14
in the South Atlantic Region, Birmingham-Southern on their home
courts, 5-4. The Panthers took two of three doubles points and then
split the singles matches to make the lead hold up. Felix Mann and
Bryan Bailey (8-5) won their doubles contest while the combos of
Ross Beall-Alex Biffle (8-2) and Lawrence Sweatman-Brad White (8-0)
dropped their matches. In singles play, Beall (6-3, 6-3), Biffle
(3-6, 7-6, 10-6) and Bailey (6-0, 7-6) earned wins while
Mann (6-2, 6-2), White (6-0, 6-0) and Tanko (6-2,
6-2) fell.
The Petrels got back to their winning ways on Saturday morning
by topping Millsaps, 5-2. The doubles matches were hotly contested
with Oglethorpe only winning one point but the Petrels stormed back
to claim all of the decided singles matches for the win. In
doubles, White-Sweatman (9-8) won a nail-biter while Beall-Biffle
(9-8) and Mann-Bailey (8-6) lost heartbreakers. In
singles, Mann (6-1, 6-1), Biffle (6-2, 6-0), Bailey (6-2,
6-2) and White (6-1, 6-1) all secured points for the
Oglethorpe victory while the matches of Beall and Tim Tanko went
unfinished.
Later on Saturday Oglethorpe topped Southwestern, 7-2. This time
Oglethorpe claimed two of three doubles points and never looked
back. The combos of Biffle-Mann (8-2) and Sweatman-Bailey (8-1)
secured doubles wins while only White-Masen Shreve (8-0) went down.
In singles, Mann (6-1, 6-3), Biffle (6-0, 6-0), Bailey (6-3, 6-2),
Tanko (6-1, 6-2) and Shreve (6-1, 6-1) all proved victorious while
White (6-3, 6-2) came up just short.
The Petrels capped the weekend on Sunday by knocking off Centre,
7-2, for their third win in a row. Oglethorpe survived some tight
doubles matches to claim 2 of 3 en route to the win with
Mann-Bailey (8-6) and Sweatman-White (9-8) earning narrow victories
and Biffle-Beall (9-7) coming out on the losing end. In the singles
matches, Oglethorpe got victories from Mann (opponent retired),
Biffle (6-0, 6-0), Bailey (6-1, 6-0), White (6-1, 6-0) and Sweatman
(7-6, 6-3). Beall retired in his match to give Centre their only
other point.
With the results the Petrels are now 11-7 on the season and will
get set to host Covenant on Tuesday on Downing Howell Courts at
4:00 p.m.
