STATESBORO, Ga. – For the second time in as many days, the Georgia Southern men's tennis team took on Sun Belt conference opponent and fellow rival Appalachian State. The Eagles were coming off a 4-3 thriller on Friday against Georgia State and defeated the Mountaineers from Boone 4-2 on Saturday.

The Mountaineers jumped on the Eagles early winning the doubles point and took momentum heading into singles play. The Eagles would take that doubles loss and use it as motivation in singles play. Murphy McCullough gave the Blue and White a spark with a quick straight set victory on court six 6-2, 6-0.

Santiago Suarez would continue the Eagles scoring with another straight set victory on court five. Suarez defeated his opponent 6-4, 6-1 to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead in singles play. Appalachian State would level the scoring with a victory on court one, but the Eagles would find a surge from the freshman Pascal Wagemaker.

Wagemaker would win the first set 6-4 in his match, but drop the second set 4-6. In the third set he traded games with his opponent and would go on to win the tiebreaker 7-6. With the win on court four, the Eagles stretched their lead to 3-2 and all eyes fell to last night's hero Artemie Amari.

Amari dropped his first set 4-6, but played his game stretching his match to a third set with a 6-4 victory in set two. In the final set Amari dialed into that adrenaline and defeated his opponent 7-5 to clinch the match for the Eagles and complete the weekend sweep of their rivals. The Eagles improved to 13-10 on the season and 3-1 in conference play and will have one final conference match against Louisiana on Tuesday.
 
WHAT HEAD COACH SANDER KONING SAID
"App State played with a lot of heart like every year the match was a tough back-and-forth battle. I know they have been through a lot this year and it's great to see that the players from App State keep competing through all of it. Today came down to a couple of point and I think it went our way because we have been in similar situations very recently and we were able to capitalize better when it counted. We have little time to celebrate since we have another big conference match against Louisiana on Tuesday."
 
SINGLES RESULTS
Webster (APP) def. Di Aloy 6-4, 6-3
Landin def. Bargenon (APP) DNF
Amari def. Webster (APP) 4-6, 6-4, 7-5
Wagemaker def. Pavkovich (APP) 6-4, 4-6, 7-6
Suarez def. Stone (APP) 6-4, 6-1
McCullough def. Brea (APP) 6-2, 6-0
 
DOUBLES RESULTS
Webster/Bargenon (APP) def. Landin/Finkelstein 7-5
Pavkovich/Webster (APP) def. Amari/Di Aloy 7-5
McCullough/Suarez def. Brea/Free (APP) 6-3

NEXT UP
The Eagles will host Louisiana on Tuesday in the final mid-week match of the season.

 
Georgia Southern Athletics provides current information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, which is fully responsive with any device. Information on Eagle athletics can also be found through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics and Instagram.com/GSAthletics. To purchase tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, visit GSEagles.com/tickets.