ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Using four-straight singles victories, the No. 22 Georgia College men's tennis team (3-0, 2-0 PBC) overcame a 4-1 deficit in beating No. 26 Flagler College (0-2, 0-1 PBC) 5-4 Saturday on the road. Junior Mattia Campus (Concorezzo, Italy) won the final match, capping the miraculous comeback.
The Saints held a 2-1 advantage after doubles action, finding wins in the first and second slots. In third doubles, Campus and Pedro Ecenarro (Santiago de Compostela, Spain) beat Justen Louis and Hunter Hutcheson 8-2, improving the Bobcat pair to 3-0.
Jose Martinez and Bruno Padilha upset the No. 21 pairing of Yannick Hass (Troisdorf, Germany) and Vincent Castermans (France) 8-6 in the first slot, while Jannik Kumbier (Neumünster, Germany) and Taylor Powell (Martinez, Georgia) took an 8-6 defeat as well to David Espinosa and Brant Switzler.
The first two singles results were losses for the Bobcats in the first and third spots. Castermans, playing a spot up, battled No. 13 Martinez to a 6-4, 6-4 loss. Anton Waern (Taby, Sweden) dropped a 6-2, 6-0 match to Espinosa in the third slot, making the team score 4-1.
The rally started with Ecenarro in fourth singles, making short work of Padilha 6-1, 6-3. Kumbier followed suit with a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 battle in the second slot over Switzler.
Powell brought the match even in fifth singles with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Louis, setting the table for Campus' heroics. The junior left little doubt, running over Hutcheson by a 6-1, 6-2 score.
Powell and Ecenarro share the team's best singles record this season at 3-0. The Bobcats as a team have yet to lose at second, fifth and sixth singles, despite having three different players in three matches in each of those three slots.
The 2-0 Peach Belt Conference (PBC) start is the best for Bobcat men's tennis since 2009, when Georgia College went 7-0 in PBC play, taking the PBC Men's Tennis Championship.
The Bobcats are back in action Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m., traveling to Morrow, Georgia for a neutral-site matchup with the University of Alabama-Huntsville.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 11 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at @GCBobcats on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit GCBobcats.PhotoReflect.com to purchase photo prints from home athletic contests.
