Final Stats

BEAUMONT - It was a bitter fight until the very end, but the Lamar men's tennis team fell just short in the Southland Conference Tournament championship game on a 4-2 loss to back-to-back champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at the Beaumont Municipal Tennis Center on Sunday.

Only courts three and six were yet to be decided for the Cardinals (14-11) and No. 60 Islanders (19-6), and Ricardo Mayagoitia clinched it on line three from Benny Schweizer, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. Schweizer had to battle back to force a third set and was tied at 3-3 in the third, but Mayagoitia finished it over a cramping Schweizer.

"We did a really good job against Corpus Christi today. They have more experience than us in this scenario, and I believe that helped them," said head coach Scott Shankles. "You have to tip your hat to them. They are champions for a reason.

"Today they were a better team late just by a little bit," he said.

It was the second-straight year that the Islanders downed the Cards to capture an automatic berth to the NCAA Championships.

The singles match that cut Corpus Christi's 3-1 lead to one point was a back-and-forth boxing match on line one. The first set went to a tie break that saw Nikita Lis win 7-6 over the 101st-ranked player and the Southland Conference's Play of the Year Peter Nagy.

The second set was more of the same. Lis continued to jump on top and get to the match point, but Nagy always found a way to stay alive. Finally, the sophomore was able to finish off the senior in straight sets, 7-6, 7-5.

"Nagy is a great player, and is probably the mostly mentally tough player we have ever come across in our league," said Shankles. "So for Nik to beat a guy who is nationally ranked really says a lot of him. He's lost to him in the past, but never lets those losses affect him."

It was only the second time that Nagy had lost a Southland Conference singles match in the regular season or tournament.

"Nik always comes in with a game plan, and he had a good one today," said Shankles. "Clearly he executed it the way he intended and I'm very proud of him for doing that."

Much like it did in the regular season meeting, Lamar started off 1-0 after a doubles point win. Michael Feucht and Schweizer gave the Cardinals the advantage with an 8-4 court two victory over Guillaume Rauseo and Kevin Bettendroffer.

Nagy and Arthur Bedel evened doubles from line one with an 8-6 victory over Lis and Jeandre Hoogenboezem. The first point of the match fell on Mikko Rajamaki and Juuso Laitinen, who took an 8-7 win over Mayagoitia and Paul Cook on No. 3.

Bettendroffer tied the match at 1-1 when he got by Michael Feucht from position two, 6-3, 6-4. Minutes later the Islanders took courts four and five to give themselves a 3-1 lead. Rauseo outlasted Hoogenboezem in three sets, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 and Javier Pujol downed Rajamaki, 6-1, 6-3.

Line six was the only court to go unfinished, and Laitinen held a 5-7, 6-1, 5-4 lead over Cook when it was called.

"That wasn't the result that we wanted, but there's nothing to be ashamed to finish second," said Shankles. "We'll learn from it and get better. Hopefully it'll help us get back here again and win it."

Rajamaki is the only senior on a team that claims three sophomores and one freshman and a junior.

#60 Texas A&M - Corpus Christi 4, Lamar 3