ELSAH, IL – The Principia Men's Tennis team welcomed the University of the Ozarks to Hexberg on Thursday evening for the Panthers' last home match until the end of March. After traveling for 6 hours, the Ozarks Eagles were excited to play and ready to give the Panthers some difficult matches.
Principia was able to take all three doubles matches with
Juan Segovia and
Kuda Sandi winning 8-3 at #1,
Jesús Soto Bossa and
Ernesto Botero winning 8-5 at #2, and
Álvaro Martín Moliz and
Rafter Sprague winning 8-6 at #3. With three hard-fought wins under the Panthers' belt, the team was excited to dive into singles.
Even with momentum, the Panthers were met with demanding singles opponents. Segovia at #1 and Moliz at #3 played especially difficult opponents who gave them a run for their money. After going down early in his first set, Segovia didn't give up and took both sets 6-4, 6-3. Moliz cruised to a first set win 6-2, but the rest of the match was a back-and-forth battle. The Eagles' #3 took the second set in the tiebreaker 7-4, but Moliz was able to prevail in the third set tiebreaker 10-7 to clinch Principia's second 9-0 sweep of the season. Credit to Ozarks for bringing it their all and giving the Panthers some long and competitive matches.
Up Next: Principia will head to Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana on Saturday for a tri-match with Wabash (9:00 am ET) and Earlham College (1:00 pm ET).
