TOURNAMENT PAGE
THIBODAUX, La. – The Nicholls State University men's tennis team will make their fifth consecutive appearance in the Southland Conference Tournament as they take on regular season champion and No. 1 seed Lamar on Saturday, April 23 at 10 a.m. The tournament will be held in Nacogdoches, Texas at the Schlief Tennis Complex.
Nicholls will be looking to put an end to its four-match postseason losing streak, with its last victory coming in 2012. One of the losses came against Saturday's opponent, Lamar, which eliminated the Colonels in the 2014 tournament.
The Colonels enter postseason as the No. 4 seed after going 1-4 in Southland play. Nicholls' lone win came against Incarnate Word on March 15 in a 4-3 decision. Lamar earned the top seed with an undefeated record as they dethroned Texas A&M-Corpus Christi by snapping the Islanders' seven-consecutive titles run.
Nicholls and Lamar played earlier this season in Beaumont, Texas and the Cardinals picked up a 7-0 shutout victory.
Sam Meessen was the only Colonel to win a set against the conference champions before falling to Benny Schweizer in a tiebreaker on the No. 3 court.
Meessen led Nicholls this season with a 6-7 record in singles, and tallied the same mark in doubles competition. He went 3-2 in conference play and most of his matches came on the No. 4 court.
Bernard Wezeman, who was named Second Team All-Southland for singles, also had a 3-2 record in league play for singles and played primarily on the No. 6 court.
Kieran Cronin and
Oleksander Podgursky headed doubles with a 5-5 record overall and 2-2 mark in Southland play. All 10 of their matches came on the No. 1 court.
Lamar is headlined by Southland Conference Player of the Year, Michael Feucht. A junior, Feucht led the Cardinals to seven straight victories entering the tournament, capped by a victory in the season finale against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
LU had all six players named All-Southland, with five receiving the honor in singles. Feucht, Jeandre Hoogenboezem and Juuso Laitinen all went undefeated for singles, while Hoogenboezem and Nikita Lis were unscathed in doubles.
