Southland Tournament Page
Men's Bracket
 
THIBODAUX, La. – After claiming its most conference wins in program history, the No. 2 seed Nicholls State University men's tennis team will square off against No. 3 seed Lamar in the quarterfinals of the 2014 Southland Conference Men's Tennis Championship on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center on the campus of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
 
The Colonels (11-12) enter the postseason on a four-match losing streak, but two of the losses came in the regular season-ending doubleheader at No. 33 Alabama. Nicholls' last win was against Lamar (13-12) where the Colonels shutout LU on the road, 7-0.
 
Nicholls is led in singles by its trio of all-conference performers – sophomore Nico Mertens, and freshmen Partha Adavelly and Bernard Wezeman. Mertens, a two-time first-team All-Southland honoree, went 14-5 this season, helped by a 10-3 record at the No. 2 slot. Mertens was unscathed in conference play, winning all six of his matchups including four in straight sets.
 
Adavelly also earned first-team honors and was named freshman of the year. Adavelly played most of his matches at No. 1, going 9-10 with a 5-1 mark in conference. Wezeman also went 5-1 in Southland play to earn the No. 4 singles title and finished the year 9-11 overall.
 
The rest of the singles lineup consists of three freshmen, all who earned three wins in conference. At No. 3, Lukas Clemens was .500 in conference and won nine of his 20 matches on the year. Sam Meessen went 9-9 and 3-2 in the SLC playing primarily at No. 5, and Kieran Cronin was 3-3 in conference and 5-5 overall.
 
Lamar, who ended the season with a 4-3 win over Incarnate Word to snap a four-match skid, is headed by the All-Southland Second Team duo of Juuso Laitinen and Nikita Lis. Both earned 12 wins in singles on the year to lead the Cardinals to one of their best seasons in recent history. Jeandre Hoogenboezem went 5-1 in conference play, with his only loss coming against Cronin on the No. 6 court.
 
The winner of the Nicholls-Lamar matchup will advance to the finals to take on No. 1 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi or No. 4 New Orleans.