SoCon Tournament Central - Live Stats
Samford Media Guide
ELON, N.C. – The Samford University men's tennis team will begin play in the 2013 Southern Conference Tournament Friday at noon (CDT) as the second-seeded Bulldogs are slated to square off against the seventh-seeded Davidson Wildcats in the quarterfinal round of the 11-team competition to be held at the Burlington Tennis Center.
Samford (12-9) enters the league's postseason tournament as the No. 2-ranked team in the conference. The Bulldogs finished the year with a 7-3 SoCon record and is coming off a lopsided 7-0 home triumph over The Citadel on Saturday.
In its regular-season finale, Samford tallied doubles wins on courts No. 2 and No. 3 to take an early 1-0 lead versus The Citadel.
The Bulldogs then received straight-set victories from
Zac Dunkle,
Elliot Barnwell,
Fares Kilani,
Alex Sajonz,
Austin Akers and
Garrison Laduca to post the shutout win.
Kilani, Samford's feisty native of Tunis, Tunisia, earned a 6-2, 6-4 victory over The Citadel's Peter Bleach to improve his team-best record in singles play to 15-6 and 8-2 against SoCon opponents. Samford's Akers moved to 13-7 on the season, while Barnwell and Sajonz both improved to 13-8 in dual-match play this year.
The Bulldogs finished their 2013 campaign with an 8-2 record at home. Samford also registered six shutout victories this year. Already this season, the Bulldogs have tallied similar lopsided wins against Jacksonville State, 4-0, Eastern Kentucky, 7-0, Davidson, 7-0, Chattanooga, 7-0, Wofford, 7-0, and The Citadel.
Davidson (12-8) advanced to the quarterfinal round of the SoCon Tournament by defeating 10
th-seeded Wofford, 4-1, on Thursday.
In their opening-round triumph, the Wildcats lost the doubles point, but then rallied to victory in singles play with consecutive wins from Chris Mark, Alex Howard, Connor Evins and Joe Schafer.
Earlier this year, Samford and Davidson faced off in Davidson, N.C., and the Bulldogs earned a 7-0 victory. In the SoCon regular-season match held March 29, Samford tallied triumphs on doubles courts No. 2 and No. 3 to claim the first point of the match.
The Bulldogs then received singles victories from Dunkle, Barnwell, Kilani, Sajonz, Akers and Laduca to complete the 7-0 team sweep.
The winner of Friday's quarterfinal contest will advance to the semifinal round of play at the 2013 SoCon Tournament and will square off against either No. 3-seed College of Charleston or No. 6-seed Georgia Southern at 1 p.m. (CDT) at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center on the campus of Elon University.
SoCon Tournament Central - Live Stats
Samford Media Guide
