No. 57 NC State and UNCW Spoil Davidson’s M. Tennis 2011 Season-Opener

Saturday, January 15

Raleigh, NC

10:00 a.m.

Davidson College Athletics

No. 57 NC State

No. 57 NC State and UNCW Spoil Davidson’s M. Tennis 2011 Season-Opener

1/15/2011 3:13:54 PM | Men's Tennis

Gavin McFarlin -- Assistant SID

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Davidson men's tennis team held their own against nationally-ranked NC State, but the Wolfpack proved to be too much in the end, taking a 7-0 decision over the Wildcats in both team's season-opening match to start the 2011 season on Saturday at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center.

Later in the afternoon, Davidson fell 4-1 to UNC Wilmington in a neutral site match.

NC State, ranked 57th to start the season, took two of three doubles matches and then swept all six singles to score the win.

The match started out with the Wolfpack scoring doubles wins at No. 1 and 2, but Davidson's team of Chris Mark (Union City, Calif.) and Kevin Moore (Overland Park, Kan.) prevented the sweep as the sophomore duo took home a hard-fought 9-7 win at No. 3.

Despite facing three ranked opponents in singles action, the Wildcats held strong as they forced two three-setters of the six matches. Joe Schafer (Orchard Park, N.Y.), a SoCon All-Freshman team member last year, started his sophomore campaign off with a first-set 7-6 (5) tie-breaker win over No. 61 Jamie Pulgar. But Pulgar regrouped and took the next two, though needing 10 games to do so in each set, taking two 6-4 decisions in set two and three.

NC State's other two ranked players, No. 82 Dominic Hodgson and No. 106 Dave Thomson, each took straight set wins at No. 2 and 3 against Mark and Arie Hefter (Birmingham, Ala.).

Senior Walker Lyons (Wallingford, Pa.) was the other 'Cat to force a three-setter. He fell behind early, 6-3, after one set, but cruised to a 6-0 win in the second set. He then nearly took home the singles win when he forced a tie-breaker in the final set, but came up just short, 7-0, in the tie-breaker to fall 7-6 to Rafael Paez.

Davidson looked to regroup in its match against UNCW, but came up short in another hard-fought match. The Seahawks captured three of the singles matches as well as the doubles point for the three-point win.

Schafer and Calum Gee (Ayr, Scotland) teamed up for the Wildcats second doubles win of the afternoon, scoring an 8-6 victory over Pedro Mol and Chris Cooprider at No. 1. The other two doubles matches also went down-to-the-wire with the Seahawks capturing two 8-6 decisions.

In singles play, Schafer scored the Wildcats lone point with a three-set winner. He took the first set 6-4, before falling in a tie-breaker second set, 7-6 (4). The sophomore came back to close out the match with a 6-3 decision for his first singles win of the season.

Though the 'Cats dropped three singles matches that finished, all three were close. Hefter played Rafael Aita at No. 3 singles to a three-setter after he took a 6-3 first-set win. Aita came back though to take the last two sets, 6-4 and 7-5.

Mark fell 6-4, 6-3 at No. 2 singles, while Gee played a close match against Cooprider at No. 4. Gee fell in the first set, 6-4, but nearly took home a second-set tie-breaker, before falling 7-6.

Davidson remains on the road and will next take on nationally-ranked Clemson next Saturday, Jan. 22, at 12 p.m. The Tigers are ranked 53rd in the latest ITA rankings.