March 21, 2006

Final Stats

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Down 1-0 after losing the doubles point, the Golden Eagle tennis team rallied to win three singles spots, but it wasn't enough as Southeastern Louisiana took the other three singles spots to claim the 4-3 victory.

With the loss, Southern Miss drops to 3-9 (1-2 C-USA) while No. 65 Southeastern Louisiana improves to 10-1.

"We competed well, but lost our opportunity to win the match after we lost the doubles," Head Coach Teddy Viator said. "We need to get over this hump and beat these teams, though this is the best we've played this year; we need some of our other guys to step up when they have a chance to beat a team like this. However, this is the closest we've been to beating a ranked team this season, which is a good sign that we're heading in the right direction and we get another chance at another ranked team (No. 43 Alabama)." tomorrow

Southeastern Louisiana took two out of three doubles to claim the doubles point. Julien Lausao and Matthieu Leboucher (SLU) won at No. 2 doubles against Domagoj Anic and Reid Bourgeois, 8-5, and Haris Huremovic and Ondrej Krivka (SLU) won at No. 1 doubles, 9-7, against Marc Lux and Andrew Poole. No. 3 doubles between Tommy Maestri and Dylan Mezey against Illie Babinciuc and Vladimir Paunic (SLU) was unfinished at 6-6.

With their losses, the doubles records of Lux/Poole (3-3) and Anic/Bourgeois (3-2) each fell.

Southern fell behind early in singles, losing the first three singles matches. Babinciuc (SLU) defeated Juan Garzon at No. 2 singles, 6-1, 6-2, Lausao (SLU) defeated Poole at No. 6 singles, 6-4, 6-1 and Paunic (SLU) finished off the Lions run with his 6-3, 6-3, defeat of Mezey at No. 5 singles.

The Golden Eagles battled back to win the remaining three singles matches at No. 1, 3 and 4. Anic began the run at No. 1 singles with his 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Huremovic (SLU), followed by Lux's 6-2, 2-6, 1-0 (10-5) victory against Leboucher (SLU) at No. 3 singles. Bourgeois finished the match with his defeat of Krivka (SLU) at No. 4 singles in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3.

For the season, Bourgeois (4-6), Anic (4-7) and Mezey (4-8) are tied for the most singles wins, followed by Poole (3-8), Lux (3-9), Garzon (2-7), Koti (1-4) and Maestri (0-2).

Southern Miss travels to Tuscaloosa, Ala. on Wednesday, March 22 for a 12 p.m. match against No. 43 Alabama.