Men's Tennis | 04.19.2023
NEW ORLEANS – The Lewis-Clark State Men's Tennis team opens the 2023 NAIA Unaffiliated Group tournament versus Rust (Miss.) at noon Pacific Time on Thursday at the XULA Tennis Center on the campus of Xavier University (La.).
The tournament consists of five teams with the top three seeds earning a bye. The winner between the Warriors and Bearcats will play the top seed of the tournament, No. 7 Xavier.
Lewis-Clark State finished the regular season with an 11-13 record. Rust went 1-4 in a shortened season while XULA finished with a 15-6 record. No. 24 Our Lady of the Lake (11-12) will take on (RV) Texas A&M-Texarkana (10-4) in the other semifinal on Friday. The championship will take place on Saturday.
Dan Felker and
Maksim Matyrnyi will team up for the 10th time this season. The duo will take on Elijah Johnson and Zach Auguste in No. 1 doubles. Felker and Matyrnyi are 5-4 as a team this season with a 4-3 record in No. 1 doubles.
Declan Townsend and
Cade Edwards will also team up for the 10th time this season in a contest with Xavier Evans and Kris Huntsman in No. 2 doubles. The pair are 5-4 as a doubles team, but 5-1 in No. 2 doubles classification.
Itaru Kikuchi and
Austin Swing have not had many NAIA matches together (0-2) but will look for their first win as a team in No. 3 doubles against Nathaniel Clark and Javion Bogan.
Felker will resume his role in No. 1 singles where he was 11-8 on the season when he takes on Johnson. Townsend will take his 9-7 record in No. 2 singles action into a match with Auguste.
Edwards has a solid 10-7 record on the year and will compete in No. 3 singles versus Bogan. Kikuchi will look for his eighth victory in a match versus Huntsman in No. 4 singles.
Swing will look to improve on his 2-9 record when playing in No. 5 singles competition with a match against Clark. Matyrnyi, who has played in five of the six singles classifications this season, will look for win number nine when he faces Jeremiah Maldonado in No. 6 singles.
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