BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- Mirroring its shutout win in the regular season, the No. 3-seed University of Pikeville men's tennis team blanked No. 6-seed Georgetown 5-0 in the first round of the Mid-South Conference Tournament on Saturday.
The Bears advance to the semifinals at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday where they will face second-seeded Cumberlands. The Patriots won against UPIKE 7-2 back in early March on their home courts.
Needing just five wins to secure a win, the Bears got it done in quick order, starting with a sweep in doubles.
Top-seeded Jan Kappes and Enzo Douillac beat Ryo Takeda and Cole McReary 8-3, second-seeded Eric Bernabue and Diego Reboredo topped Tristan Nosek and Ryan Simms 8-5 and Fernando Fernandez and Juan Reyes won against Austin Colliver and A.J. Berk 8-5 as well at the third seed.
Bernabue was the first to claim a singles win, beating Kaushik Kailish 6-1, 6-2 at the sixth seed, while Douillac sealed the win with a 6-1, 6-3 decision over Nosek at the second seed.
Award-Winning Night for the Bears
At the annual awards banquet on the eve of the tournament, UPIKE racked up a bevy of awards, including two major awards and four players being names All-MSC.
Major honors went to Douillac who was named the MSC Freshman of the Year after posting records of 6-5 in singles and 8-3 in doubles, while Tim Alderman was named the league's coach of the year by a vote of his peers. It is the first such award for Alderman who is in his fifth season with the team.
Douillac and Kappes earned First Team All-MSC honors, while Pablo Casas and Reyes were second-team selections.
UPIKE also claimed six Academic All-MSC honors, trying Lindsey Wilson for the most of any league team. Honored from the Bears were Bilal Ahmed, Brennan Alderman, Reboredo, Nicolas Rodenbusch, Devon Sgubin and Dobbe Weverink.
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