Spartanburg, S.C. ? The 59th-ranked Stetson men's tennis team (14-3, 5-0 Atlantic Sun) extended its winning streak to 12 matches and stayed undefeated in the Atlantic Sun conference with a 4-3 win at USC Upstate (10-5, 3-1 A-Sun) on Friday. Senior Marcus Echtler (Venice, Fla.) and junior Filip Kricka (Umag, Croatia) were double winners for the Hatters. Echtler provided the clinching point with a three-set victory.
Although Echtler and Kricka won their #1 doubles match by an 8-5 score over Sebastian Gonzales-Orbegoso and Leandro Osorio, the Spartans won the other two doubles matches to take a 1-0 lead into the singles portion of the proceedings.
The Hatters won three of the first five singles matches to tie the match 3-3, getting three-set victories from sophomore Hicham Laalej (Meknes, Morocco) and senior Joey Jones (Titusville, Fla.) at the #2 and 3 positions, respectively. Kricka dispatched Gonzales-Orbegoso 6-2, 6-3 at #4 singles.
The outcome of the match would ride on the showdown between Echtler and USC Upstate's Sandy Franz at #1 singles. Echtler dropped the first set 6-7 in the tiebreaker (5-7), but battled back to win the second set in the exact same fashion as Franz before outlasting his Spartan foe 6-3 in the final set to give Stetson the road victory.
"Obviously we started very slow in doubles but I am so proud of our team and particularly our top four guys who once again performed admirably under pressure," Head Coach Pierre Pilote said. "The leadership of our seniors was evident in this great comeback victory."
The stage is now set for tomorrow's showdown of nationally ranked squads between the 59th-ranked Hatters and the #46 ETSU Buccaneers in Johnson City, Tenn. tomorrow at 12 p.m. First place in the A-Sun will be on the line after the Bucs (14-3, 4-0 A-Sun) defeated Florida Gulf Coast 6-1 today.
