April 23, 2009

Results

ELON, N.C. - The Samford men's tennis team's season came to an abrupt end Thursday as the Bulldogs suffered a 4-3 defeat against the Davidson Wildcats in the 2009 Southern Conference Tournament being held at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center. The Bulldogs led 3-0 and were only one victory shy of clinching the match before Davidson reeled off four-consecutive singles wins to earn the 4-3 triumph.

With the loss, Samford concluded its 2009 campaign with a 6-16-1 overall record and a 3-6-1 mark in SoCon play. Davidson improved its record on the season to 7-16 and advanced to face the top-seeded Furman Paladins at noon (CDT) Friday in the second round of action.

Samford jumped out to an early 3-0 lead Thursday by winning the doubles point and receiving a pair of quick singles wins from sophomore Carl Abalos and junior Kelwin DeWet.

Abalos, the Bulldogs' native of Woodstock, Ga., breezed by Carter Braxton in the No. 6 singles match, 6-0, 6-0, while DeWet posted another straight-set victory over Walker Lyons on court No. 2, 6-2, 7-5. Abalos improved his record in singles play to 9-13 this season.

With Samford leading 3-0, it appeared that the Bulldogs would cruise to an easy first-round victory, especially when Richard Walsh, Carson Kadi and Oliver Reynolds also earned opening-set wins in their respective matches.

Davidson started its come-from-behind attack on court No. 4 where Calum Gee posted a 7-5, 6-1 victory against Samford's Brian Dushock.

Then, in the No. 1 singles contest, the Wildcats' Eric Noble outlasted Walsh, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, to make the overall score of the match 3-2, and to shift all of the pressure to clinch the victory over to Samford's Kadi on court No. 3.

Kadi, who was earlier on Thursday named to the SoCon's All-Freshman Team, won the first set of his singles match against Scott Myers, 7-5, before dropping the second set by an identical score. In the decisive third set, both players battled back and forth in a heated contest before Myers was able to rally for the 7-5 come-from-behind victory.

With Myers' win, all of the attention shifted to the No. 5 singles match where Samford's Reynolds and Davidson's Arie Hefter were battling in a third-set tiebreaker.

Reynolds won the first set 7-5 and then Hefter posted an identical victory in the second set. After fighting to a 6-6 draw in the third set, both players had numerous opportunities to make headway in the tiebreaker before Hefter ended up notching a nail-biting 9-7 win. The result gave Davidson its final 4-3 victory in the match.

Match Results