Southern Illinois University
NIU
Salukis win dog fight against Huskies
02/05/2016 | 12:00:00 | Men's Tennis
Tony McDaniel
SIUSalukis.com
Rockford, Ill.—The Southern Illinois men's tennis team won its third straight match of the season on Friday over Northern Illinois, 4-3. The Salukis were bolstered by a strong performance in singles play.
"This was a great college match with a lot of drama," head coach Dann Nelson said.
The Salukis dropped the doubles point but fought back by winning four out of the six matches in singles play to top the Huskies on their home court.
In singles play, SIU won matches at the one, two, three and five spots. At No. 1 singles, senior Jonny Rigby dropped his opening set to NIU's junior Carlos Manzanas, 6-2, but fought back in sets two and three to clinch the victory and the point for SIU. Junior Michal Kianicka easily defeated his NIU counterpart, Louis-Philippe Hamel in straight sets at No. 2 singles. At No. 5 singles, sophomore Alex Pozo defeated Kevin Daun 6-1, 6-2.
Southern earned its match clinching fourth point at No. 3 singles. NIU's Georg Lundkvist forced SIU junior Wilder Pimentel to a third set, but Pimentel ended Lundkvist's comeback bid with a 6-3 victory in the third set to clinch the victory for the Salukis. With Pimentel's match-clinching victory he improved to 3-1 in singles matches this season.
"After losing the doubles point I felt like we were going to find out how much fight is in our team," Nelson said. "Mike and Alex got us on the board right away, Jonny and Wilder both had to win and were successful in their three set matches."
In doubles, Rigby and Kianicka defeated NIU's duo of Manzanas and Austin Russell, 6-1. With the win Rigby and Kianicka are just four wins away from setting a new school record for career wins as a duo. Rigby's win in doubles and singles moves him to just two from wins from tying Fabiano Ramos for second place on SIU's all-time wins list. Rigby currently has 124 singles and doubles wins in his career at SIU.
This is the second straight year the Salukis have defeated Northern Illinois. Last year SIU beat NIU 4-3 in Carbondale. It is the first time the Salukis have beaten Northern Illinois in back-to-back years since 2006 and 2007.
"I'm very happy with the final result today," Pimentel said. "We all fought hard in every match, and that showed in the final score. We are doing good so far this season and I'm very excited to see what comes next."
Players Mentioned
