By Dylan Vazzano, TTU Sports Information
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Playing in its first-ever Horizon League Tournament, the Tennessee Tech tennis team will once again take its usual spot in the championship match after the Golden Eagles topped North Division No. 1 seed Cleveland State 4-2 in a semifinal battle for the ages Saturday afternoon. Tech will now be playing in the title match of a conference tourney for the seventh straight year (excluding 2020) after playing for the all the marbles in the last six OVC Tournaments before moving to the Horizon League.
Sunday's opponent to decide who claims the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament will be a familiar foe, in fact, one that Tech has squared off with in the championship match of the OVC Tournament in every year since 2018 (excluding 2020) – the Belmont Bruins, who took down the North Division No. 2 seed Youngstown State 4-1 in the tournament's other semifinal.
Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
After dropping the doubles point to fall behind 1-0 to the Vikings (19-7), a team that had won 18 of their last 22 contests coming into the semifinal affair, Tech turned it on during singles play behind wins in four-of-five completed clashes.
The Golden Eagles (9-13) took care of business at the top of the lineup thanks to wins in the first three spots, with Mika Berghaus collecting a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Maxime Mareschal-Hay in the No. 1 position, Elias Grubert carding a 6-2, 6-1 nod against Kade Mindry in the No. 2 bout and Evzen Holis notching a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) triumph over Mikael Erier in the No. 3 meeting.
Trailing 3-1, Carl Gedlitschka picked up Cleveland State's lone singles win behind a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 decision against Jaime Paquet in the No. 6 get-together to cut the deficit to 3-2 and set the stage to put all eyes on the No. 4 and No. 5 clashes.
With both affairs in the middle of a tightly contested third set, and with Tech's season on the line, the No. 4 tussle finished slightly ahead of the No. 5 matchup and swung in favor of the purple and gold to propel TTU to the finish line. Paulo Ramos Martin, in about as close a clash as possible, captured a 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (5-7), 7-5 nod over Raul Teichmann that saw the Golden Eagle freshman trail 3-0 in the third set before mounting a late comeback to push Tech to the semifinal victory.
The No. 5 tilt did not finish after Pol Masafret won the first set 7-5, but went on to drop the second set 6-3 to Devin Boyer to even things up at 1-1. The two played to a 6-6 deadlock in the third set at the time it was called.
As far as doubles play is concerned, that too went down to the wire with the Vikings picking up the point thanks to victories in the No. 2 and No. 3 meetings. Carl Gedlitschka and JuandeDios Abboud seized a 6-1 decision against Evzen Holis and Pol Masafret in the No. 2 position and Maxime Mareschal-Hay and Mikael Erier secured a 6-3 win over Jaime Paquet and Paulo Ramos Martin in the No. 3 spot.
The Golden Eagles did pick up a nod in the top tandem tangle thanks to an Elias Grubert and Mika Berghaus 6-3 triumph against Kade Mindry and Raul Teichmann.
In search of its sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last seven full seasons, Tech will have to go through a Bruin squad that went undefeated in Horizon League play with a 10-0 conference mark. Belmont will head into the title tilt having won 13 consecutive contests, which includes two wins over the Golden Eagles. The Bruins downed Tech 6-1 in Cookeville on Mar. 26 and topped the purple and gold 7-0 in Nashville on Apr. 15.
First serve from the Varsity Tennis Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. Is scheduled for 2 p.m. CT.
Photo by Thomas Corhern
