VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — No. 3 seed Averett University men's tennis knocked off No. 2 seed and No. 44 nationally ranked Virginia Wesleyan University 5-3 in Saturday's Old Dominion Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals, sending the Cougars into Sunday's championship match.
Averett (10-7) will face defending champion and top seed Washington and Lee University (16-7) — ranked No. 28 nationally — at 10 a.m. Saturday for the title, marking the second consecutive year they'll meet in the ODAC finals.
Averett found itself trailing host Virginia Wesleyan (16-7) early during doubles play in all three matches, but the Cougars didn't retreat. Averett battled back to win at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles and take a 2-1 lead into singles play. Junior
Jaeden Mukkaladyil and sophomore
Kazuki Fukushima rallied to win 8-4 at No. 2 doubles. The No. 3 tandem of sophomores
Sam Egui and
Martin Guyot also fought back to win in the tiebreaker, 8-7 (8-6).
Fukushima inched Averett closer to victory with his win at No. 5 singles, 6-2, 6-0. Mukkaladyil's 6-2, 6-3, win moments later at No. 2 singles gave the Cougars a 4-1 advantage. However, Virginia Wesleyan took victories at No. 3 and No. 1 singles to close the gap to 4-3. It didn't matter. Sophomore
Prabjeet Chandhok clinched the match with his No. 4 singles win, advancing the Cougars to the championship for the second consecutive time as members of the ODAC and third conference final appearance in a row dating back to Averett's time in the USA South Athletic Conference. Chandhok won 6-2. 6-3.
Nationally ranked Washington and Lee also advanced in the first match of the day, beating No. 4 seed Shenandoah University 5-1. The Generals clinched a spot in their 27th consecutive ODAC final, having won 13 straight ODAC titles.
