Spartanburg, S.C. - The 71st-ranked Stetson men's tennis team rallied from a 3-0 deficit on the scoreboard with four singles wins in the final four matches of the day to defeat host USC Upstate 4-3 on Saturday at the Upstate Tennis Complex. The Hatters improved to 12-3 (3-1, A-Sun) while the Spartans dropped to 8-7 overall and 1-3 in A-Sun play.

USC Upstate claimed the doubles point to start the match and when Mathias Kidler and Gonzalo Blanco claimed straight set wins for the home team to open up the singles proceedings, the Hatters knew they had their work cut out for them to come back.

Stetson freshmen Nathan Debut (Toulon, France) and Jacobo Herrero (Madrid, Spain) got the Hatters back on track with 6-1, 6-2 and 6-4, 6-2 wins on Courts 4 and 6, respectively. Senior Maksim Levanovich (Minsk, Belarus) tied the match as he roared back from a dropped first set to defeat Ramiro Blanco 3-6, 7-6, 6-3 at #1 singles. That set the stage for the clinching point on Court 5, where Hatter rookie Chester Espie (Auckland, New Zealand) outlasted Yvon Haessig 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 to claim a 4-3 victory for Stetson.

"What a great bounce back from our guys today after a sub-par peformance yesterday at ETSU," Stetson Director of Tennis Pierre Pilote said. "It's never easy to come back after losing the doubles point to a talented team like USC Upstate on their home court and to see our freshmen step up like they did in such an important match was really impressive."

The Hatters return home for a pair of A-Sun matches next week. Stetson hosts Jacksonville at noon Thursday, March 29 and nationally 50th-ranked North Florida at 2:00 pm Saturday, March 31. Live Scoring for both matches will be available at GoHatters.com.

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