ORLANDO, Fla. – Despite winning the doubles point, No. 36 Penn State men's tennis finished out the USTA National Campus Collegiate Series with a hard-fought loss to No. 49 UCF, 4-3.
The Nittany Lions now sit with a 7-5 record while UCF improves to 8-5 on the season.
"For our first week outside, I thought we competed really well," head coach Jeff Zinn said. "UCF is a really good team and very well coached. They have tremendous depth which showed up tonight in the match. We gave ourselves chances to win and that is all you can ask for from a team."
"Disappointing loss but I'm happy with how we played against a well-coached UCF team that trains outdoors all year," associate head coach Paul Tobin said. "We certainly had many opportunities to close things out, taking early sets at No. 1, and No. 2. We lost our steam on those 3rd sets and that is something we really need to work on."
DOUBLES
Penn State won two of three doubles matches to win the doubles point and put the team up heading into singles competition.
Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) and Matt Galush (Cary, N.C.) first defeated Grassi Mazzuchi/Decamps, 6-3.
Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France) and Gabriel Nemeth (Brasilia, Brazil) clinched the first point of the match for the Nittany Lions with a win over Hilderbrand/Pavel. The pair has now won their last three matches and has a record of 6-4.
SINGLES
No. 110 Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario, Canada) got the first singles victory for the Blue and White, defeated Bogdan Pavel, 6-3, 6-0. He now has a 9-2 record and has won his last five matches.
No. 101 De La Bassetiere earned his third win over a ranked opponent of the season against No. 18 Gabriel Decamps, 6-4, 6-2. With the win, he improves to a 8-2 record.
Despite a very tight three sets, Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece) dropped a tough match to #122 Alan Rubio, to clinch the match for the Knights.
UP NEXT
The Nittany Lions will return to Big Ten action against Michigan State on Saturday, March 16 at 4 p.m. in East Lansing, Mich.
Doubles results:
1. #4 Constant De La Bassetiere/Gabriel Nemeth (PSU) def. Trey Hilderbrand/Bogdan Pavel (UCF) 7-6 (5)\
2. Ben Lieb/Matt Galush (PSU) def. Gabriel Decamps/Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi (UCF) 6-3
3. Mikhail Sokolovskiy/Alan Rubio (UCF) def. Christian Lakoseljac/Christos Antonopoulos (PSU) 6-2
Singles Results:
1. #101 Constant De La Bassetiere (PSU) def. #18 Gabriel Decamps (UCF) 6-4, 6-2
2. #110 Christian Lakoseljac (PSU) def. Bogdan Pavel (UCF) 6-3, 6-0
3. #122 Alan Rubio (UCF) def. Christos Antonopoulos (PSU) 6-7(3), 6-4, 7-6 (12), 6-3
4. Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi (UCF) def. Gabriel Nemeth (PSU) 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-1
5. Trey Hilderbrand (UCF) def. Ben Lieb (PSU) 6-3, 2-6, 3-6
6. Mikhail Sokolovskiy (UCF) def. Jordan Nickerson (PSU) 6-4, 6-2
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