MEN’S SEMFINAL SCORES
Tennessee Tech 4, Jacksonville
State 3
Eastern
Kentucky 4, Austin
Peay 2
TENNESSEE TECH 4, JACKSONVILLE
STATE 3
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech defeated Jacksonville State, 4-3, to the championship match of
the OVC Tennis Tournament. The Golden Eagles will face Eastern
Kentucky in the finals at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Jacksonville State picked up the doubles points as
Axel Sundberg and Nenad Marcec defeated Tech's duo of Syrym Abdukhalikov and Alex
Chen. JSU’s clinched the first point of the match after Igor Santos and Jordan
Cowling topped TTU's team of Arten Tarasov and Vasely Eremeev.
Tech
rebounded in singles play by taking the first set in four of the six matches,
which keyed the come-from-behind win. JSU won the opening set at No. 2
and 3 as Santos
and Cowling claimed the opening set. Santos and Cowling went on to post straight
set wins. Santos downed Chen, 6-2, 6-0 to
give Jax State a 2-1 lead. Cowling pushed
the Gamecocks' score to three wins after a 6-4, 6-0 win over Tarasov.
Tech's Justin Kirstein claimed a win over JSU's Felipe Watanabe for
its second point, while Abdukhalikov turned back a solid effort by Sundberg to
win 6-3, 7-6. TTU evened the match when Marcec pushed OVC Freshman of the
Year, Alejandro Augusto, to a third set at No. 3. Marcec dropped the
first set, 6-0, but battled back to claim a 7-6 second set. Augusto won
the third and deciding set, 6-1.
With the match knotted at 3-all, it came down to No. 6 in a third set
affair. After splitting the first two sets, JSU freshman Felipe
Wenzel fell to Eremeev, 6-1. With the win, Tech advances to Sunday's
Championship match against Eastern Kentucky,
who knocked off Austin Peay in the other semifinal match.
EASTERN KENTUCKY 4, AUSTIN PEAY 2
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Eastern Kentucky University men’s tennis team clinched a spot in the Ohio Valley Conference championship match for the fourth straight year thanks to a 4-2 victory over Austin Peay Saturday afternoon at the Centennial Sportsplex Tennis Center.
Eastern Kentucky (18-9) claimed the doubles point behind convincing wins at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles. Seniors Hugo Klientovsky and Carles Pons have now won nine straight matches at the No. 1 spot following an 8-4 triumph over Austin Peay’s Sean Bailey and Dimitar Ristovski.
Austin Peay responded by winning No. 2 and No. 3 singles to jump ahead in the team score, 2-1, but EKU rallied with wins by Klientovsky (No. 1), senior Emilio Piriz (No. 6) and fellow senior Parul Verma (No. 4) to close out the match. Klientovsky defeated the Bailey, the OVC Player of the Year, in three sets. Verma bounced back after a rough first set to down Austin Peay’s Aleksas Tverijonas in the deciding match.
The Governors had defeated EKU just a week ago in the regular season finale by a count of 4-3.
WOMEN'S SEMIFINAL SCORES
UT Martin 4, Murray State 1
Eastern Kentucky 4, Austin Peay 3
UT MARTIN 4, MURRAY STATE 1
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - UT Martin defeated Murray State to advance to the 2012 OVC Women's Tennis Championship match. The Skyhawks will face Eastern Kentucky in the final at 2 p.m. CT.
The Skyhawks earned the doubles point picking up wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots. UT Martin got singles wins from Jodie Tiely, Anna Marie Herbold and Alice Laing to clinch the victory.
The Racers conlcuded the season with a 12-11 record.
EASTERN KENTUCKY 4, AUSTIN PEAY 3
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Eastern Kentucky University women’s tennis team battled late into the evening before defeating Austin Peay, 4-3, in the semifinals of the 2012 Ohio Valley Conference championships. EKU, the tournament’s top seed, has now won eight consecutive matches.
The match came down to the No. 1 singles contest between EKU’s Amandine Faouzi and Austin Peay’s Vanja Tomic. Faouzi, the OVC Freshman of the Year, ended Tomic’s 17-match winning streak just a week ago in straight sets. This time, the two players fought into a third set before Faouzi once again came out on top, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
Fellow freshmen Kristina Labeja (No. 2), Carmen Rodriguez (No. 6) and sophomore Milena Poffo (No. 5) all prevailed in straight sets to help propel Eastern Kentucky to its third championship match in the last four seasons.
Eastern Kentucky will be looking to earn just its second ever OVC championship on Sunday. The Colonels won their lone title in 2009 by defeating Murray State in the championship match, 4-0.
EKU and No. 2 seed UT Martin will square off in the finals tomorrow, April 22 beginning at 2 p.m. CT. Eastern edged UTM earlier in the season, 4-3.