2 doubles teams, 1 singles player reach semifinals for XU

NEW ORLEANS -- Xavier University of Louisiana's Brion Flowers reached the semifinals in women's singles and doubles Saturday at the USTA/ITA NAIA South Regional Championships at City Park/Pepsi Tennis Center.

Flowers, a sophomore seeded fifth in singles, defeated Georgia Gwinnett's Luma Schwab 7-5, 6-3 and Auburn Montgomery's Chanel Cunningham 6-1, 6-3. Flowers will play Brenau's second-seeded Dominika Jasova in the semifinals at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Flowers and Kourtney Howell, the No. 1 doubles seed, advanced when Belhaven's Ainsley Wright and Elizabeth Chrestman retired with Xavier leading 5-0. Flowers and Howell will play their semifinal match against Georgia Gwinnett's Rocio Fernandez and Victoria Svennson after the singles semifinals.

All matches, four in the championship round, will be played Sunday at the XU Tennis Center.

Advancing in men's singles was the undeeded XU team of Jordan Harrell and Nikita Soifer. They beat Belhaven's Daniel Prado and Ignacio Osse 8-3 and Belhaven's Andre Almeida and Enrico Patriarca 8-6. Harrell and Soifer will play AUM's top-seeded Nicolas Pinones and Miguel Grifol after the singles semifinals.

All four singles semifinals in the main draw will begin at 9 a.m.

Both consolation singles champions were crowned. AUM's Maria Vargas defeated Belhaven's Mary Lichlyter 9-7 in the women's final, and XU freshman Tushar Mandlekar won the men's title after receiving default victories in the final two rounds.

Belhaven's long-standing policy of prohibiting intercollegiate competition on Sundays caused it to forfeit two semifinal matches -- one an all-Belhaven matchup -- in the men's consolation singles and another in men's doubles. Tournament officials denied a Belhaven request to complete the matches early next week by traveling to the site of its opponents.

Mandlekar won three times Saturday to reach the semifinals and dropped just one game. He beat Point's Anthony Tucker 8-0, William Carey's Emmanuel Lacko 8-0 and Belhaven's Tomas Ojeda 8-1.

Georgia Gwinnett's unseeded Erik Moberg upset AUM's top-seeded Pinones 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 1-0 (10-8) in the quarterfinals. The only seeded men's singles player remaining is AUM's No. 7 Grifol, who advanced after a 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-3) victory against Georgia Gwinnett's second-seeded Bruno Tiberti.

AUM's Jade Curtis, the No. 1 seed in women's singles, advanced after dropping one game in two victories. Curtis and Cunningham, seeded second in doubles, won twice.


By Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
XULAATHLETICS
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA