Tournament Central
AUBURN, Ala. -- The Samford University men's tennis team is eager to compete in its biggest tournament of the 2014 fall season this week as the Bulldogs head to the ITA Southern Regional Championships to be held Thursday through Monday at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
The talent-laden field of the four-day competition will consist of 96 student-athletes from 16 teams. The schools competing in the 2014 ITA Southern Regional Championships are Samford, host-school Auburn, Alabama, Jackson State, Jacksonville State, Louisiana-Lafayette, LSU, Mississippi State, New Orleans, Nicholls State, Ole Miss, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Troy, Tulane and UAB.
The tournament is slated to begin at 8:30 a.m. (CDT) each day (Thursday-Monday) and will be held at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
Competing for Samford this week will be senior
Austin Akers, juniors
Trey Carter and
Fares Kilani, as well as sophomore
Henry Moore and talented true freshmen
Jake Faundez and
Austin Heinz. All six players will be competing in both singles and doubles play at the four-day tournament.
In their most recent outing, the Bulldogs turned in a solid weekend of play at the 2014 Samford Fall Invite. On the final day of action in the event held Oct. 3-5, Samford closed out the tournament in strong fashion by winning four singles matches and a doubles contest.
The Bulldogs' duo of Akers and Moore turned in another victory on day three; tallying two on the weekend. They beat Donovan McSeveney and Christian Coetzee from UAB, 8-7, to finish the competition with a 2-1 record.
Akers also picked up another singles win in a tough three-set match. After losing the first set to Miguel Grifol of Auburn-Montgomery, 7-5, Akers was able to turn the table and win the match with sets of 7-5, 6-1.
Samford's Carter picked up a key win in another three-set singles match versus UAB's Coetzee 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. This was the second singles win of the tournament for the returning junior.
Additionally, Samford's Faundez recorded his first singles win with an impressive win over Christian Egan Morris from UAB, 6-3, 6-0. Fellow-freshman Heinz saw his first action of the season in a tough loss to Oliver Poysti of UAB, 6-2, 6-2.
Action in the 2014 ITA Southern Regional Championships will begin at 8:30 a.m. (CDT) on Thursday and will last throughout the day.
Tournament Central
