March 10, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 31 Penn State men's tennis team heads to Florida this to play three matches. The Nittany Lions face No. 53 South Florida in Tampa on Tuesday at Noon. On Thursday, Penn State travels to Orlando to take on No. 60 UCF at 11 a.m. and Southern Miss at 4 p.m.
Penn State improved to 11-1 this past weekend with a 6-1 win at No. 50 Princeton. It was the Nittany Lions' first road win this spring and their third over a Top 50 opponent.
The Nittany Lions won the doubles point for the 11th time this year in 12 matches as they got wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles spots. Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and Chris Young (Melbourne, Australia) are now 6-0 this spring at No. 2 doubles, while David Kohan (Sydney, Australia) and Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) improved to 7-2 with a win at No. 3 doubles.
Russell Bader (Austin, Texas) and Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) look to get back on track this week after snapping their seven-match win streak. They are 8-3 this spring.
In singles, Stakhovsky, Bader, Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.), Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) and Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) all picked up wins.
Stakhovsky, ranked 50th in the ITA Poll, earned his third win this year over a ranked singles opponent as he knocked off Princeton's Zack McCourt, ranked 108th. Stakhovsky holds a mark of 10-1 this spring.
Bader improved to 11-1 in dual matches and 18-5 overall. Bader sits one win behind tying Mike Griesser (1995-99) for sixth place on the all-time wins list at Penn State. Bader has 85 career wins.
The freshman, Fennell, earned his ninth-straight win this past weekend to move to 10-2 this spring and 14-5 overall. Barry is now 7-1 this spring, while Trkulja picked up his sixth win this spring. Freshman Marc Collado Castells (Barcelona, Spain) also has seven wins in dual matches.
South Florida enters this week with an 8-3 mark and a ranking of 53rd in the ITA Poll.
Sophomore Roberto Cid is 11-1 this spring and ranked 81st. Ignacio Gonzalez-Muniz has seven wins this spring.
Cid and Sasha Gozun are 8-0 this spring while ranking 29th in the ITA Doubles Poll. Gonzalez-Muniz and Oliver Pramming are ranked 35th and have a 5-2 record.
UCF is 7-2 this spring with a 5-1 mark in home matches. They are ranked 60th in the ITA Poll.
Senior Matthew Gladstone is 4-4 this spring while competing at the top single spot for the Knights. Amar Hromic and Jesse Flores have combined to go 3-4 in the No. 1 doubles spot.
Southern Miss has a record of 7-7 entering this week.
Senior Juan Escobar and sophomore Vasco Valverde share the team lead with eight wins this spring. Paulo Alvarado is 5-8 while competing mostly at the No. 1 singles spot for the Golden Eagles.
Alvarado and Escobar have paired up to go 10-2 in doubles and have won six straight matches.
Please check back to GoPSUSports.com throughout the week for coverage of this week's matches. Updates are also available on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.