GREENVILLE, SC - The Eagles fell on the road to the Furman Paladins on Sunday, 5-2. The match was moved indoors due to the cold temperature. The Eagles will continue their road trip next Friday, January 28 against North Florida before hosting Gardner-Webb on February 5 for their home opener.

Furman jumped to an early start by winning the doubles point. Freshmen Laurent Julia Calac and Dimitris Paliouras won their doubles match 6-1. The other two doubles teams fell short, which gave the doubles point to Furman, which gave Furman a 1-0 lead in the contest.

Being down 1-0 at the start of the singles matches, the Eagles showed a lot of character by winning three out of the four first sets, as the match was only played on four courts. Unfortunately, the Paladins rallied back and won three out of four matches. Tao Castillo finished his match with a 7-6, 2-6, 6-2 victory. At that time, Valentin Dun and Laurent Julia Calac started their matches. Dun came up short for his first match of the spring, but Julia Calac came victorious for his first singles win as an Eagle, 3-6, 6-2, 10-8.

QUOTE FROM COACH BAYON: "First and foremost my team and I are thankful for the opportunity to compete today. Competition is the only true assessment of where we are as a team. I'm very proud of our effort but while playing well, we failed to convert quite a few opportunities to make the match go our way. We are already looking forward to the competition in Jacksonville against UNF on Friday and even more so playing at home the following week for our home opener. Go Eagles!"

RESULTS

Doubles

Mitric/Connel def. Castillo/del Castillo 7-5

Westling/Roelofse def. Roumpis/Dun 6-4

Julia Calac/Paliouras def. Burnam/Laymon 6-1

Order of Finish: 3, 1, 2

Mitric def. del Castillo 6-3, 7-6, 6-1

Connel def. Roumpis 6-4, 6-2, 6-4

Castillo def. Poritzky 7-6, 6-2, 6-2

Roelofse def. Paliouras 7-5, 7-6

Westling def. Dun 6-0, 6-2

Julia Calac def. Singerman 6-3, 6-2, 1-0 (10-8)

Order of Finish: 2, 1, 4, 3, 5, 6