EFSC men's tennis team in third heading to final day of national tournament

The Eastern Florida State College men's tennis team will play for a national championship in three flights at Collin College on Thursday.

Pablo Garcia won his semifinal match at No. 4 singles in straight sets, beating Co0llin College's Ander Huelmalo 6-2, 6-0 to advance to the finals on Thursday morning.

Up 4-2, Garcia finished off the first set to win 6-2 and then dominated the second set to post the 6-0 win to advance to the final.

Garcia will face No. 1 seed Kenta Kawada from Pratt Community College who advanced by defeating No. 4 seed Wojciech Biela 6-1, 7-6 in the other semifinal.

Then in doubles, the No. 1 doubles team of Fernando Martinez and Salva Mulet advanced to the championship match with a straight sets win over Barton's Charles Alipoe and Raphael Ankrah. Martinez and Mulet won the match 6-1, 6-4.

"We have been using our serve a lot, we both have good serves and we took advantage of that," Mulet said. "We did what we have been practicing all year in pressure situations."

The duo will play No. 2 seed Sam Dineen and Kenneth Rabinad Vila of Pratt in the final Thursday at noon.

The No. 2 doubles team of Filip Sormaz and Johan Mottlau will also be playing for a national title on Thursday after winning a thrilling three set match against Tyler Junior College's Wojciech Biela and Luca Laurindo who were the No. 1 seed.

After splitting the first two sets, 6-2 and 3-6, Sormaz and Mottlau would hold to take the 6-5 lead and then get the break to end the match with the 7-5 win.

"The key was sticking to our original game plan and we knew what to do. We had been serving well the whole match so just holding serve and when we had our chances, try to get the break," Mottlau said. "They played a really good match so it was hard for us, but when we saw the chance we took it."

The duo will play No. 2 seed Kawada and Thiofhi Tshivhase who survived a tight three set match 6-7, 7-6, 7-5. The Pratt duo moved on to face Sormaz and Mottlau at noon.

In the singles consolation bracket, Johan Mottlau won his semifinal match at No. 3 singles over SW Illinois' Ethan Moeller 8-0 and Tomas Kurz Cardozo beat Seward's Juan Luzuriaga in the semifinals of the No. 5 singles 8-3.

Mottlau will play Weatherford's Andres Serrano while Cardozo will play USC-Sumter's Andrew Griffith in the consolation finals Thursday. Both will start at 8 a.m.

In the consolation bracket doubles, the team of Garcia and Cardozo will play in the final after defeating SW Illinois' Jack Meyer and Moeller 8-1.

The final will be at noon.

Eastern Florida State College heads into the finals in third place overall in the standings by a half a point with 24.5 points. Cowley College has 24 points. Pratt leads the tournament with 31.5 points with Tyler Junior College second with 30.

"Today was really exciting, we made up a lot of ground and sitting in a podium position and control our own destiny now," Eastern Florida State College men's tennis coach Nick Rosatti said. "It is really impressive for our guys because they are in a position where mathematically they are not supposed to be there. We have a four, a five and a six seed playing In main draw finals so it is really exciting to see our guys "upset" a lot of guys in this tournament."