Boxscore

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – No. 2 seed St. Thomas (Fla.) University edged No. 3 seed SCAD Savannah 5-3 in a semifinal match of The Sun Conference Men's Tennis Tournament Friday (April 15) morning at the Crotty Tennis Complex.

The 13th-ranked Bobcats improved to 14-2 and advances to Saturday's (April 16) 10 a.m. title match against top seed Embry-Riddle (Fla.) University, which defeated Webber International University 5-0 in the other semifinal. SCAD, which is ranked No. 16 in the NAIA, fell to 7-4 and now will have to wait until May 10 to see if they will earn an at-large berth to the NAIA National Championship that will be held May 17-21 in Mobile, Ala.

In doubles play, Federico Acevedo and Andrew Rifkin gave St. Thomas a 1-0 lead with an 8-3 defeat of Darnell Sgubin and Romeo Juhasz. Noah Moerkerken and Mihai Draganescu came back from being 4-1 down to top pull SCAD level with an 8-6 win over Arturo Romero and Jeremy Bache at the No. 2 spot.

It took close to an hour and a half to decide the match at No. 1 doubles where the Bees' Dean Loock and Kaan Yaylali took a slim 5-4 lead over Adrian Escarate and Nicolas Etienne, but the Bobcat duo battled back to tie the score at 8. St. Thomas jumped ahead 4-0 in the tiebreaker, but were unable to hold on to the advantage as Yaylali and Loock registered five unanswered to move ahead 5-4. With the score at 7-6 in favor of SCAD, the Bees' duo broke Etienne's serve at match point and gave SCAD a 2-1 lead heading into singles.

The Bobcats won at No. 1 and No. 6 singles to move ahead 3-2, but Juhasz bested Rifkin at the third spot to pull the Bees even. Bache put STU back on top with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Draganescu at No. 4 and Acevedo held off Sgubin 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 to send the Bobcats to the title match.