ABILENE, Texas. – No. 46 Southeastern fared well in its west Texas road swing after picking up back-to-back victories over Texas-Permian Basin, 8-1, and No. 47. McMurry, 5-4, as the club continues to position itself for a regional tournament bid.
The wins lift the Savage Storm to 10-9 overall on the season and snaps a four-match losing skid, all of which came at the hands of teams ranked in the ITA Top-30 Nationally.
SE closed out the road trip with a very closely contested victory over No. 47 McMurry that featured a doubles match going to a tie breaker as well as a pair of three-set singles matches.
The War Hawks jumped out to a 3-0 lead after sweeping doubles play.
All three matches were tight with SE's No. 1 duo falling 8-5 and the No. 3 duo falling 9-7.
No. 2 doubles went to a tie breaker where
Filip Pavlovic and Martin Bedcarratz fell 9-8 with a 7-3 mark in the breaker.
The Storm rebounded, however, in singles play, starting with a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 1 singles by
Luka Radulovic to get SE on the board.
Pavlovic recovered form a first set defeat at No. 2 to pick up a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win and close the gap to 3-2.
Bedcarratz picked up a 6-2, 6-4 win at the third position and evened the match at 3-3.
Laercio Lobo gave the Storm its first lead on the contest by cruising to a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 4 singles.
Tiago Ferreira would provide the final blow in the victory, with a 7-5, 5-7, 3-0 win at No. 5 that give the Storm five-straight singles wins atop the lineup and sealed a team victory.
Billy Haugen would drop his match at No. 6, 6-4, 6-4 to fashion the 5-4 final score.
The McMurry match was a tough follow up to Southeastern's match the day before when it cruised to an 8-1 victory over Texas-Permian Basin.
The Storm dominated at No. 1 and 3 doubles, with the top pair of Radulovic and Ferreira posting an 8-4 win while the bottom of the lineup saw Lobo and Haugen rush to an 8-1 win.
The pair of Pavlovic and Bedcarratz faced a stout resistance at No. 2 doubles, but would ultimately use the tiebreaker in their favor to win 9-8 with a 7-5 score in the breaker.
Radulovic continued his success atop the SE lineup with a 7-5, 6-2 win that pushed the score to 4-0.
Pavlovic would ensure a Storm win with a 6-3, 6-2 victory at No .2 singles that made the score 5-0.
A 6-2, 6-0 win by Bedcarratz at No. 3 and a 6-1, 7-5 win from Lobo at No. 4 would push the advantage to 7-0.
Ferreira picked up the final SE win in a 6-2, 6-3 decision at No. 5, while UTPB was able to collect one point at No. 6 to fashion the final score of 8-1.
The Storm are closing in on the end of the regular season with an April 9 contest against Newman serving as the final non-conference matchup before facing East Central at 2 p.m. on April 11 and Harding at noon on April 15. Both conference matches are in Durant.
