BATON ROUGE, La. – The Nicholls State University men's tennis team dropped its first of two straight matches against No. 48 Louisiana State, falling to the nationally-ranked Tigers 7-0 Sunday evening at W.T. Robinson Stadium.

The loss was the third straight for the Colonels (7-9), while LSU improves to 8-7 on the year. The squads will meet again on April 3 in Baton Rouge before Nicholls closes out the season with two conference matches. The Colonels are currently in second place in the SLC with a 2-1 record.

Against LSU, the Tigers jumped out to a 1-0 lead with victories in the No. 1 and 3 matches. Karatzas/Roy Knight fell 8-3 in the No. 3 match before Damian Despotovski/Nico Mertens lost the No. 1 match against Olivier Borsos/Roger Anderson 8-4.

In singles play, LSU clinched the victory with three straight set wins in the bottom of the lineup. Karatzas lost 6-0, 6-1 (No. 4), Sidharth Sivakumar fell 6-2 in both sets at No. 5 and Jeoffrey Noblecourt lost his sets at No. 6 6-2.

In the No. 1 match, Damian Despotovski lost against Borsos 6-4, 6-2. After falling 6-1 in the first set of the No. 2 match, Dmitry Kozionov put up a fight in the second set against Chris Simpson but was defeated 7-5. Rounding out the match, Mertots rebounded from a 6-1 loss to Harrison Kennedy in the No. 3 match to win 6-3 in the second set; however, Kennedy kept the Colonels scoreless with a 10-7 win in the tiebreaker.

#48 Louisiana State 7, Nicholls 0
Singles competition
1. Olivier Borsos (LSU) def. Damian Despotovski (NICH) 6-4, 6-2
2. Chris Simpson (LSU) def. Dmitry Kozionov (NICH) 6-1, 7-5
3. Harrison Kennedy (LSU) def. Nico Mertens (NICH) 6-1, 3-6, 1-0 (10-7)
4. Tam Trinh (LSU) def. Evan Karatzas (NICH) 6-0, 6-1
5. Mark Bowtell (LSU) def. Sidharth Sivakumar (NICH) 6-2, 6-2
6. Boris Arias (LSU) def. Jeoffrey Noblecourt (NICH) 6-2, 6-2

Doubles competition
1. Olivier Borsos/Roger Anderson (LSU) def. Damian Despotovski/Nico Mertens (NICH) 8-4
2. Stefan Szacinski/Tam Trinh (LSU) vs. Dmitry Kozionov/Jeoffrey Noblecourt (NICH) 5-4, unfinished
3. Chris Simpson/Boris Arias (LSU) def. Evan Karatzas/Roy Knight (NICH) 8-3

Match Notes:
Nicholls 7-9
Louisiana State 8-7; National ranking #48
Order of finish: Doubles (3,1); Singles (6,4,5,1,2,3)