JMU Rolls to 6-1 Win over Longwood at Home

Wednesday, April 1

Harrisonburg, Va.

3 p.m.

James Madison University

Longwood

4/1/2015 6:39:00 PM | Men's Tennis

HARRISONBURG, Va. – James Madison men's tennis stretched its win streak to three matches as the Dukes rolled Longwood 6-1 at Hillside Courts on Wednesday afternoon.

The Dukes improved to 6-8 overall while the Lancers dropped to 3-15 this season.

JMU swept doubles action for the first point, beginning the day with an 8-1 triumph at the No. 1 position by sophomores Miljan Ruzic and Sebastian Salinas. After Steed Johnson and Lachlan Manser closed the gap to 2-1 lead, the Dukes rattled off wins in the next six games to take the win.

Junior Maxi Branth and sophomore Alex Berdnikoff clinched the opening point for JMU with an 8-4 win against Bharani Sankar and Rosen Ilchev at No. 3 doubles, overcoming a 3-4 deficit by winning the final five games. Junior Robert Stirling and sophomore Brett Moorhead used an 8-5 victory over Florian Uffer and Alfonso Castellano at No. 2 doubles to complete the sweep.

Freshman Stephen Goldman opened singles action with a two-set win (6-3, 6-1) over Manser at the No. 6 position. Branth followed with a two-set victory (6-0, 6-3) over Ilchev at the No. 4 position to take a 3-0 advantage over the Lancers.

Moorhead posted a 6-4, 6-1 success over Uffer at No. 3 singles to tally the decisive fourth point of the day before Salinas won the final five games of the second set at No. 2 singles to take a 6-3, 6-2 win over Johnson and the fifth point of the afternoon.

After a tight three-set tiebreaker loss (2-6, 7-6(7-1), 10-7) by Stirling to Castellano at No. 1 singles, Ruzic closed out the 6-1 team win with a tiebreaker victory (6-2, 4-6, 11-9) over Sankar at No. 5 singles.

The Dukes continue their home stretch on Thursday, April 2 with Hampton at 2 p.m. at Hillside Courts.