Men's Tennis Claims Four Flight Titles at GWU Fall Classic
September 27, 2014 | Men's Tennis
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. - The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team took home four Flight titles this weekend as they played host to the 2014 GWU Fall Classic, played at the Webb Tennis Complex over September 26-27th.
The Runnin' Bulldogs finshed the Inivitational with the singles Flight No. 4, 6 and 8 crowns, while adding a doubles crown winning the Flight No. 3 position, sweeping the competition over the two-day event.
Senior Ernest Alberch led the way for the Runnin' Bulldogs as they welcomed in Wofford and Big South competitors Longwood and Presbyterian. Alberch finished the event with a record of 3-0 at the No. 4 position defeating Parks Thompson from Wofford on Friday (6-4,6-3) followed by strong showing Saturday defeating Longwood's Florian Uffer (6-2, 6-0), and winning a comeback gritty three-set match over Brandon Miller of Presbyterian (6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3) to cement his Flight Championship.
Alberch also combined with Junior playing partner Nikita Zverkov for two doubles wins on the weekend defeating the teams of Elston/Uffer from Longwood (8-5) Friday, and comfortably beating Presbyterian's Miller/Lykou (8-2) Saturday afternoon.
The Runnin' Bulldogs head coach Mike Griffith had these comments to say about his teams performance this weekend. "This weekend we learned a lot from seeing how players would play at certain positions, and I saw that several freshman are going to be great contributors this season as they excelled against good oponents this weekend. Overall I liked how the whole team competed this weekend, and we are going to be real good when the spring gets here."
Two freshman who played very well at this weekends home Invitational were Adam Schmidt and Yaroslav Prostakov. The two players made up the team that swept the doubles No. 3 position winning the Flight No.3 title. Schmidt and Prostakov handled each of the three oponents they faced defeating Wofford's Heffron/Keith (8-5), Sankar/Manser of Longwood (8-4), and comfortably beating Presbyterian's Bejar/Roberts (8-1)
Both Prostakov and Schmidt finished the Inivitational with a singles record of 2-1 at their respective positions, with Prostakov winning at the No. 2 singles position (6-3, 6-7(5), 6-2) over Alfonso Castellano of Longwood and (6-3, 6-2) against Ryan Miller from Presbyterian capturing both wins on Saturday. Schmidt on the other hand split his wins winning over Walker Heffron of Wofford (6-4, 6-2) on Friday and playing hard finishing (3-6, 6-4, 7-5) to defeat Longwood's Steed Johnson.
Redshirt Freshman Paul Hogan also added to the GWU Flight title mix by winning both of his singles matches played at the No. 6 position this weekend. Hogan played a strong match to come out with the victory versus Jackson Keith of Wofford (6-3, 6-7(3), 6-4) then to move on and beat Lachlan Manser (6-3, 6-3). Hogan also combined with freshman Michael Perry to win a No. 4 doubles match over the combined team of Ilchev from Longwood)/ Bejar of Presbyterian (8-6).
Rounding out Gardner-Webb's Flight Titles was junior Jonathan Walker. Walker who was not originally scheduled to play singles this weekend stepped in to play in the No. 8 singles position for the Longwood Lancers as they only traveled a seven man team to Boiling Springs this weekend for the GWU Fall Classic. Walker finished the weekend with an overall record of 2-1 defeating his own teammate Michael Perry (6-1, 6-3) and winning (6-3, 6-3) over Wofford's Jackson Keith.
Walker also had a very strong weekend at No. 2 doubles slot with senior doubles mate Brendan Dempsey. The two finished with a 2-1 overall record on the two-day event beating Wofford's Sklar/Gotowski (8-5) and Presbyterian's Mills/Luckemier (8-6).
Dempsey along with Zverkov and sophomore Nicholas Lofrumento all also picked up singles wins in this weekends Fall Classic. Dempsey at the No. 5 position picked up his win on the weekend over Bharani Sankar from Longwood in easy fashion (6-0, 6-0).
Zverkov played a very strong weekend at the No. 1 position even though he only had one win over Wofford's Rob Galloway this weekend (6-4, 6-2,) to show for it. Coach Griffith said of Zverkov, "I was impressed by his play and learned that he can fill that No. 1 spot if needed, which only proves just how much depth we have this year."
LoFrumento finished off his weekend with a win defeating Rosen Ilchev of Longwood (6-0, 6-1) to cap it all of for the Runnin' Bulldogs for the Fall Classic which saw GWU finish with 14 singles victories and 8 doubles victories over the two-day event.
The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team will take a few weeks off before they will return to action by competing next at the Wake Forrest Fall Tournament over October 10-12th in Winston-Salem, N.C.
