No. 4 Embry-Riddle Outlasts No. 5 Concordia, 5-3 to Advance at Nationals
MOBILE, Ala. – On the perhaps the hottest day of the tournament so far, it took three and a half hours to decided the NAIA National Tournament quarterfinal match between fourth-seeded Embry-Riddle and fifth-seeded Concordia (Calif.) on Thursday. In the end, it was ERAU who won two of three doubles contests and three singles matches to come away with a 5-3 victory to advance to the semifinal round.
ERAU’s No. 3 doubles team of Charlie Rice and Zander Woodford-Smith made quick work of Ryan McNamara and Jan Guler and were the first off the court with an 8-2 win. Istvan Bolgar and Peter Francis followed with an 8-4 decision against Augusto Elias and Kareem Berdai to give the Blue and Gold a 2-0 advantage.
At No. 1 doubles, the ERAU tandem of Jan Hoekzema and Adrian Bayh went up a break, 7-5, but Concordia’s Bruno Santarelli and Andrey Potapkin were able to battle back to win five straight points and take the match 9-7 to pull Concordia within one.
Santarelli drew Concordia level with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Bayh at No. 4 singles, but Bolgar quickly countered with a straight set (6-3, 6-1) defeat of McNamara at the fifth spot. Playing one of his best matches of the season, Hoekzema increased the ERAU lead to 4-2 with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Elias at the top singles spot, but again Concordia was able to get a point back when Guler held off Luke Maricic 6-4, 6-4 at No. 6.
Up by one, ERAU needed to win just one of the remaining two matches to clinch the team victory. Francis dropped his first set at No. 2 singles to Potapkin 6-4, but rebounded to take the second set 6-1. At the same time, Rice pulled out a first-set win in his match at No. 3 against Berdai, but dropped the second 6-3.
Over the next 35 minutes, fans and teammates from both teams, encouraged and willed their respective players to a win from the sidelines. Francis, who began his third set a few minutes before Rice, fell behind early to Potapkin 3-2. But the sophomore, fueled by the support of his teammates and the ERAU women’s tennis team, battled, the heat, exhaustion and a determined opponent to pull out a 6-4 win in the third and clinch the match for Embry-Riddle.
Embry-Riddle will face the winner of the Fresno Pacific/Westmont match in the semifinals at 1 p.m. on Friday.