Eagles down Tornadoes for first SAC win
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.— The Eagles tallied their first South Atlantic Conference win of the season with an 8-1 victory over Brevard Tuesday afternoon at Mossy Creek to conclude its first conference contest in a two-day span.
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.— The Eagles tallied their first South Atlantic Conference win of the season with an 8-1 victory over Brevard Tuesday afternoon at Mossy Creek to conclude its first conference contest in a two-day span.
Carson-Newman (2-5, 1-2) came into the contest losers of its first two conference tilts of the season as the Eagles fell 8-1 to Newberry (Feb. 21) and to Coker 7-2 (Match 11).
Tuesday's matchup against the Tornadoes (1-11, 0-6) experienced only one hiccup for C-N with Stefano Daza (Venezuela) falling 6-1, 6-3 to Brevard's Tim Hungst in the third singles match, but the Eagles were able to come out on top in all seven other matches of the contest.
Daza and Juan Sebastian Perez (Ecaudor) teamed up as Carson-Newman's No. 1 doubles pairing and won 8-5 to begin the afternoon. Joao Pedro Oliveira (Brazil) and Jesus Barcete (Spain) then combined for the 8-2 win over Hengst and Chris Plasa a court over in the No. 2 match.
Carson-Newman would then conclude doubles play with a default win in the third match.
"Good first conference win for the men today. Juan and Stefano, along with J.P and Jesus, played really solid doubles today," coach Jean Love said. "We got some help from our opponent as Brevard had to default at No. 3 doubles, so we went into singles with a nice 3-0 lead, but the match was not over."
Singles play would be just as successful for the Eagles as the home team tallied five team-points in the round.
Oliveira batted leadoff for C-N and produced the 1-6, 6-4 and 6-0 win in three sets to start things off for Carson-Newman. Perez would then follow a court over with a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 2.
Marc Bantel (Germany) put forth a 6-2, 6-1 win in the fourth-seeded match before giving way to Kevin Mendes (Woodstock, Ga.) at No. 5 for the 6-0 win in two sets.
C-N wrapped up its first SAC win of the season with another default win in the sixth and final match of the contest.
"Kevin at No. 5 singles and Marc at No. 4 singles put us over the top with two decisive singles victories. J.P. played a nice match at No. 1 singles making a comeback to take the second and third sets," Love said. "Juan then finished off his opponent at No. 2 singles to cap our scoring. It was just really good to win today."
The Eagles will hit the courts again Wednesday afternoon for another conference contest to make up a rain-cancelled match that was previously scheduled for Sunday afternoon against Lenoir-Rhyne.
A complete recap following Carson-Newman and L-R can be found on cneagles.com at the conclusion of the match.
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