Southern Miss
Auburn
Golden Eagle Tennis Falls to No. 16 Auburn
2/10/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Feb. 10, 2012
AUBURN, Ala. - The Southern Miss men's tennis team dropped a hard-fought 6-1 match to No. 16 Auburn Friday afternoon at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
Southern Miss falls to 2-2 on the season while Auburn improved to 5-0.
"I was very happy with the way we competed today," Coach Ki Kroll said. "Our doubles fought hard with our 2 and 3 teams fighting until the end. In singles, everyone continued to compete well. At 6, Andrew Goodwin played very well in getting us a point. He continues to work hard and today, it paid off. Jovan also had a tough match, losing 12-10 in the third set breaker. Overall, it was a good team performance."
Auburn took an early 1-0 lead, sweeping the three doubles matches. At No. 3, Michael Eltoregui and Andrew Goodwin fell to Dennis Lengsfeld and Lucas Lopasso, 8-5. The Tigers clinched the point after posting a win a No. 1 when Daniel Cochrane and Alex Stamchev knocked off Inaki Belloso and Matt Frost, 8-2. Auburn's duo of Andreas Mies and Lukas battled hard for the win at No. 2, as they outlasted Paulo Alvarado and Juan Escobar, 8-6.
In singles, No. 18 ranked Mies put the Tigers up 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Matt Frost at No. 1. Lucas Ollert then earned a point at No. 4 singles when Belloso, retired with an injury to give the Auburn a 3-0 lead. Ollert won the first set, 6-4. The Tigers clinched the match at No. 2 when Stamchev defeated Alvarado, 6-4, 6-2.
At the no. 3 position, Lengsfeld handed Escobar a 6-3, 6-2 loss for the 5-0 lead. Southern Miss finally got on the board at No. 6 when Goodwin won the first set, 6-1, then had to fight in the second set in a tie-breaker to earn the point for the Golden Eagles at 7-6 (7-4) over Rafael Rondino. In the final match at the No. 5 singles, Jovan Zeljkovic lost his first set to Lopasso, 6-4, but was able to take the second set, 7-5, and force a third set-super tiebreaker. Lopasso was able to finish out the match at 1-0 (12-10) in the third.
Southern Miss now travels to Samford for a 12 p.m. match on Saturday.
