April 1, 2012

Box Score

BEAUMONT, Texas - The Lamar University men's tennis team dropped a 4-3 decision to visiting Nichols in the Southland Conference opener for the Cardinals on Sunday.

Lamar (6-6 overall, 0-1 Southland) split singles competition with the Colonels (8-8, 3-1), but couldn't overcome dropping the opening doubles point that came down to a tiebreaker at No. 2 doubles, where Dmitry Kozionov and Shayann Vaezzadeh edged Lamar's Denis Ermilov and Carlos Valdenebro 9-8, with the tiebreaker being 7-3.

"In most dual matches between evenly matched opponents, doubles will be the deciding factor in a win or a loss," Lamar coach Scott Shankles said. "Unfortunately, we lost a close doubles point. We just made a couple of errors that ended up changing the momentum midway through the tiebreaker.

Marton Horvath, Valdenebro and Bruno Snyder won singles matches for Lamar at the third, fourth and fifth spots, respectively.

"The middle of our lineup played to their potential and won," Shankles said. "The three matches we lost we didn't play to our potential."

Lamar hosts UTSA in a conference match at 3 p.m. Thursday.

"We need to regroup quickly in practice this week, because we have to be ready to face a tough UTSA team," Shankles said.

LAMAR