March 7, 2008

Huntsville, Ala. The "conference weekend", in which the Argonauts will play three matches against GSC rivals, could not start better that it did. The third ranked West Florida Men's Tennis (7-1) earned its seventh victory of the season by blanking unranked GSC rival West Alabama (9-1) on Friday, March 7th. The Argonauts crashed the nine winning streak from the Tigers by dominating in every singles and doubles spot to clinch the match at 7-0.

Playing conference rules, in which the first team reaching five points is declared the winner, and the matches still on would not need to finish, the Argonauts stepped up and quickly got the lead. The Argos swept the doubles play without any difficulty. In the first doubles position, Luis Arboleda (junior/Medellin, Colombia) and Eduardo Cavasotti (senior/Florianopolis, Brazil) rolled over Tigers Denton Meintjes and James Gardner, 8-6. In the second doubles spot, Nicolas Barrientos (senior/Cali, Colombia) and Patrick Batman (sophomore/Apopka, Fla.) only lost two games in their win over Tigers Brandon Harris and Carlin Tighe. Luiz Bernardi (senior/Campinas, Brazil) and Jose Ycaza (junior/ Guayaquil, Ecuador) did not drop a single game to defeat Lucas Nunes and Lucas Cruz, 8-0. After the doubles play, the Argonauts had a comfortable 3-0 lead over the Tigers.

In the singles action, the Argos did not have trouble to reach five points and finish the match. The six singles matches were divided equally and played in two different facilities. The Argos needed to win only two more matches in order to be declared the winner. Simultaneously, four Argonauts defeated the Tigers and earned more points than the necessary. Playing at the first facility, Argonauts Barrientos defeated Harris 6-3, 6-0 in the second position, while Arboleda defeated Gardner 6-3, 6-2 in the third spot. Simultaneously, in the second facility, Argonauts Jose Ycaza did not drop a game in the fifth position to knock Lucas Nunes, 6-0, 6-0, while Carlos Zamora defeated Lucas Cruz, 6-0, 6-3 in the sixth position, to give the Argonauts a final score of 7-0.

The Argonauts earned its seventh win of the season and improved its record to 7-1. The Argonauts will return to action Saturday, March, 8 2008, when they face another GSC rival, the 30th ranked North Alabama in Huntsville, Ala. at 9:00a.m. CT. This will be the second of three matches played on the conference road trip to Huntsville, Ala.

Singles
#1 Eduardo Cavasotti (UWF) vs. Denton Meintjes(UWA) 6-2, 5-5 DNF
#2 Nicolas Barrientos (UWF) def. Brandon Harris (UWA) 6-3, 6-0
#3 Luis Arboleda (UWF) def. James Gardner (UWA) 6-3, 6-2
#4 Luiz Bernardi (UWF) vs. Carlin Tighe (UWA) 7-6(2), 1-0 DNF
#5 Jose Ycaza (UWF) def. Lucas Nunes (UWA) 6-0, 6-0
#6 Carlos Zamora (UWF) def. Lucas Cruz (UWA) 6-0, 6-3

Doubles
#1 Cavasotti/Luis Arboleda (UWF) def. Meintjes/Gardner (UWA) 8-6
#2 Barrientos/Batman (UWF) def. Harris /Tighe (UWA) 8-6
#3 Ycaza/Bernardi (UWF) def. Nunes/Cruz (UWA) 8-3