Men's Tennis Closes Out Homestand with Liberty & Wofford
3/17/2011 1:30:00 AM | Men's Tennis
STATESBORO, Ga. - This week might have been Spring Break for the most of the student body, but the Georgia Southern Men's Tennis team (7-5) continues its six-match homestand with contests against Liberty (7-6) on Thursday, March 17th and Wofford on Saturday, March 19th. The Eagles and the Flames meet at 2 p.m. on St. Patrick's Day at the Hanner Tennis Complex in the first meeting between the two programs. The Eagles face Wofford (5-7, 1-1 SoCon) for its second Southern Conference match of the year at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
"We've shown a lot of grit and determination in our last few matches," said Eagles Head Coach Nick Zieziula. "We've had a couple close matches, but at critical moments we have been able to raise our level of play. This group has really committed themselves to improving and learning every day. If we continue that through these next two matches we've got a great chance to keep our win streak going, and most importantly, keep building in preparation for the SoCon tournament at the end of April. We had the opportunity to play Liberty several times in our fall tournaments, so we know that we need to be sharp and find that level from the beginning of the match."
Liberty rides a five-match win streak into Statesboro after it defeated New Jersey Institute of Technology 7-0 in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday. The Eagles own a three-match win streak that began with a 4-3 win over SoCon foe Furman last week and continued with Monday's 4-3 win over Southern Illinois Carbondale.
Georgia Southern's top two singles players, sophomores Juan Melian Puigventos (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain) and Matthijs Verdam (Hilversum, The Netherlands) put their five-match win streaks to the test against the Flames' No. 1 Siim Tuus and No. 2 Tristan Stayt. Liberty's top four singles players have won their last five matches.
The Eagles lead the series 8-6 after Wofford taking a 5-2 win in Statesboro last spring. This season, Wofford split its first two SoCon matches and is 5-7 overall on the season. The Terriers head to Hanner Tennis Complex after Army defeated them at home 4-3 on Tuesday.
Saturday's match against the Terriers at Hanner Tennis Complex has been designated Junior Eagle Day. Georgia Southern's mascot GUS will be in attendance at the match and the first 50 fans will receive free sandwiches from Subway.
For more information on Georgia Southern Men's Tennis, follow the Eagles at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com/mtennis or receive short updates at twitter.com/GSAthletics or facebook.com/GSAthletics.
