BEAUMONT, Texas – Lamar University had to work overtime to pick up its second consecutive victory and move a match over the .500 mark on the season. The Cardinals defeated Southern Mississippi, 4-2, Friday evening at the Beaumont Municipal Tennis Complex.
The moments leading up to the match were almost as excited as the match itself. Due to Mother Nature's unwillingness to cooperate with the LU campus, the teams were forced to move the match from the Thompson Family Tennis to the indoor courts at Beaumont Municipal less than two hours before the start of the match.
Beaumont Municipal has four indoor courts so doubles went off without a hitch, but singles would have to be staggered. Courts one through 4 would start and as soon as a match would end each team's No. 5 players would step on the court, if the overall outcome wasn't decided in the first four matches, followed by each school's No. 6 players.
"We had to make some adjustments today believing we were going to play outdoors, only to have to move everything indoors at a different facility at the last second," said LU head coach
Scott Shankles. "We've practiced here a few times just to be ready for a situation like this, and I thought our guys handled it well.
"We knew Southern Miss was going to come out strong. We always have close matches against those guys. Despite everything that went on, I felt like we were ready for their good play. This was a contest of two evenly matched teams," added Shankles.
Things looked good for the Cardinals early. The Red and White took charge in doubles picking up their first victory with a 6-2 decision on court three, followed by a 6-3 victory on court two. The duo of seniors
Jeandre Hoogenboezem and
Nikita Lis had a 5-3 lead at line one and appeared to be on their way to a victory as well before the match was halted.
Big Red's strong play continued in singles as the Cardinals picked up first-set victories in three of the first four matches. Senior
Michael Feucht was dominant crushing his opponent 6-1 in the opening set, while sophomore
Sebastian Santibanez appeared to record a back-breaking opening set win over Southern Miss' Jorman Reyes on court four. Santibanez won the opening set in a tiebreaker, and the Cards appeared to be flying away with an easy win.
With their backs against the wall, the Golden Eagles came charging right back picking up second set victories on each of the courts where they had lost the opening set. The only bright spot from all the second sets came from No. 2 singles where Lis was battling back from an opening set loss. Each of the first four singles matches went to a third set.
Feucht restored order in the third set of his match. After dropping a 6-3 decision to USM's Wen-Po Tseng, Feucht quickly eliminated his opponent in the third, 6-1. Lis followed suit on court No. 2. After dropping the opening set, 6-4, he won the final two sets by a combined 12-3 score to give LU a 3-0
The hopes of shutout victory came to an end when Southern Miss' Chao-Yu Huang put his team on the scoreboard with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, victory over LU's
Jeandre Hoogenboezem at No. 3 singles. The Golden Eagles' Jorman Reyes made things a bit more uncomfortable for the LU fans with his three-set winner over Santibanez at line four singles.
With the first four matches in the books, each teams Nos. 5 and 6 players stepped on the court for their matches. The schools split the opening sets with LU take the first set on court five, and Southern Miss responding with an opening-set victory on court six. Senior
Juuso Laitinen put an end to any thought of a comeback by defeating USM's Teeradon Tortrakul, 6-2, 6-4, to lock up the overall victory.
The Cardinals will be back in action Sunday to take on UT Rio Grande Valley. The match against Vaqueros will begin at noon from the Thompson Family Tennis Center.
-LU CARDINALS-
