FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Courtesy of Norwich Athletics Communications
NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Norwich University men's tennis team punched its ticket to its first-ever trip to the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championship match with a 5-4 victory over Suffolk University on Wednesday evening at Shapiro Field House.
Norwich (7-2) will host the 2015 GNAC Championship on Saturday at a time to be determined vs. the winner of the GNAC South Division between Ramapo and Rutgers-Newark. That contest will take place on Thursday (3:00 p.m.) in New Jersey.
Sophomore Jay Carter (Glassboro, N.J.) rallied to win back-to-back sets after dropping the first to clinch the victory with a dramatic win at No. 5 singles over Jacob Duggan. Carter fell 6-2, before rallying to win 6-3 and 6-1 in the next two sets.
Freshman Jeff Purdy (Grantham, N.H.) also won at No. 6 singles after Suffolk had won three straight singles matches to take a 4-3 lead and put Norwich's victory hopes in doubt. Purdy made quick work of Jose Gonzalez, winning 6-1, 6-0 to knot the match up and 4-4 and set up Carter's showdown with Duggan for all the marbles.
Carter and Purdy also combined to take No. 3 doubles with an impressive 8-0 shutout victory over Duggan and Gonzalez to improve to 8-1 on the season. Norwich also picked up a crucial victory at No. 2 doubles with freshman Marc-Olivier Tourigny (Drummondville, Quebec)and senior Patrick Ogden (Madison, Ala.) defeating Alonso Vera and Francesco Saia, 8-6 to give the Cadets a 2-1 lead after the doubles portion of the matches.
Sophomore Ian Hyte (Marblehead, Mass.) also picked up a victory at No. 3 singles, beating Vela 6-4 and 6-2 to account for the last Cadet victory of the day.
Suffolk was led by its top 1-2 tandem of senior Marc Winkler and junior Calixto Romero. The two combined to take No. 1 doubles over Ryan Grindle (Essex Junction, Vt.) and Hyte 8-4.
Grindle beat Romero 6-3 in the first set, but dropped the next two by scores of 6-3 each time to fall at No. 1 singles. Winkler also lost to Tourigny in the first set at No. 2 singles by a 6-1 score. However, the 2014 GNAC Player of the Year rallied to take the next two sets 6-2 and 6-3. Saia won No. 4 singles with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Ogden to account for Suffolk's wins on the day.
With the win, Norwich snapped Suffolk's run of five straight GNAC Championship match appearances, including three titles from 2010 to 2012. Ramapo has won the last two GNAC titles with a 5-4 win over Suffolk in 2013 and a 5-1 win over the Rams in 2014.