April 19, 2008
DALLAS (www.ucfathletics.com) - On Saturday, the UCF men's tennis team dropped its semifinal match at the Conference USA Championship against No. 9 Tulsa, 4-0, at the SMU Tennis Center. The Knights conclude the 2008 campaign with a 12-9 mark, while the Golden Hurricane improved their record to 20-4.
"I am really proud of our guys," said UCF head coach Bobby Cashman. "We came out with good energy and good fundamentals, but you can see why Tulsa is constantly a top 10 program. We have the utmost respect for them."
The Knights finished their second-consecutive season with 12 victories and advanced past the first round of the league championship for the first time since entering C-USA.
Tulsa took the doubles point, winning at courts two and three, respectively. Arnau Brugues and Ricardo Soriano, ranked 38th in the nation, defeated junior Brock Sakey (Gulf Breeze, Fla./Gulf Breeze) and freshman Claudio Romano (Valencia, Venezuela), 8-2, at the No. 2 spot.
The No. 3 spot came down to the wire, but Tulsa's Victor Kolik and Alberto Sottocorno won the tiebreaker, 9-8(5), to knock off senior Sinan Sudas (Adana, Turkey) and freshman Blaze Schwartz (Pensacola, Fla./Washington).
In singles play, the Golden Hurricane won at three spots in straight-sets.
Sudas fell to 22nd-ranked Arnau Brugues, 6-1, 6-4, on court one.
At No. 2, senior Nikolas Overkemping (Bonn, Germany) had a tough match against 58th-ranked Victor Kolik, and lost 6-1, 6-2.
"I saw a vast improvement from everyone throughout the season," said Cashman. "We are going to take this season and tournament and use it as motivation for the summer and fall."
The Golden Hurricane will move on to face the winner of the Rice/SMU match on Sunday at 1 p.m. EST for the league championship.
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