DeLand, Fla. - The 70th-ranked Stetson men's tennis team won its eighth and ninth consecutive matches on Monday, beating Niagara (8-7) and Oberlin (3-10) by identical 7-0 scores in a doubleheader at the Mandy Stoll Tennis Center. The Hatters improved to 18-3 on the season in their regular season home finales.
In the afternoon shutout of Niagara, five Hatters were double winners with five of the six singles matches ending in straight sets. Senior Mark Mestan (Cologne, Germany) and sophomore Cesare Gallo (Portogruaro, Italy) dropped just one game each while junior Alex Hackett (Surrey, England) defeated his Purple Eagle foe 6-1, 6-1. Gallo and sophomore Maksim Levanovich (Minsk, Belarus) cleaned out their doubles opponents by an 8-0 score. Mestan, the lone Hatter upperclassman, played his final regular season match at the Mandy Stoll Tennis Center.
The nightcap saw Head Coach Pierre Pilote use mostly reserve players to cruise past the Division III Oberlin Yeomen. Four of the six singles matches ended in 6-0, 6-0 shutouts while the other two ended 6-0, 6-1. Two of the three doubles matches were also 8-0 clean sheets.
Stetson, which is closing in on its third 20-win season in the last four years, finishes its regular season with a pair of Atlantic Sun Conference road matches. The Hatters visit USC Upstate at 3 p.m. Friday and travel from there to Campbell to take on the Camels at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
