Oct. 1, 2006
Final Stats
Complete Navy Results in PDF Format
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Members of the Navy tennis team combined to win 12 matches at this weekend's UNC Fall Invitational Presented by One-A-Day Vitamins at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center in Chapel Hill, N.C.
"We won 12 matches and had the opportunity to win about 10 more," said Navy head coach John Officer. "We just didn't cash in on the chances we had to close out a number of matches. We have to do a better job of finishing things up."
A total of 17 schools were represented at the tournament, including Maryland, Temple, South Carolina, East Carolina and tournament-host North Carolina.
"This was a good tournament with talented players from a number of good schools," said Officer.
Highlighting the Navy results over the three days was Alex James (Jr., Visalia, Calif.) who advanced to the semifinal round in both his singles and doubles flights. James opened his C-1 singles flight draw by posting a 6-2, 6-4 win over Taylor Befus of UNC Greensboro. He followed his opening round win with a 6-0, 7-5 win over Pavlos Stephanides of Temple before falling 6-1, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5) in the semifinals to Prantap Chatverdi of South Carolina State.
In doubles, James and teammate Jarrad Smoke (Fr., Belmar, N.J.) advanced out of the opening round of the C flight with an 8-6 win over Wofford's Jason McElveen and Richard Cahi, then posted an 8-2 victory over Maryland's duo of Aaron Carr and Louis Lavalle in the quarterfinals. Their run came to an end in the semifinals with an 8-4 loss to Befus and Jason Steinhorn.
In addition to the success of James, Johnny Waters (So., Papillion, Neb.), Adrian Lai (Sr., Tucson, Ariz.), Ashton Goldman (Jr., Richmond, Va.) and Luke Albi (So., Cincinnati, Ohio) all advanced to the championship half of their respective singles flights. Waters and Lai both competed in the B-1 singles flight, while Goldman and Albi faced opponents in the C-2 flight.
In many instances over the three days to speed up play, if a singles match was tied at one set apiece, a tiebreaker was contested in place of a complete third set. Six of Navy's 14 singles losses came in those abbreviated third set tiebreakers, with James also losing a traditional third-set tiebreaker.
"The guys played their hearts out this weekend," said Officer. "They were mentally composed all weekend and were fighting hard on every point in every match. They represented the Naval Academy with a lot of class this weekend and I am very proud of them for that."
Navy's fall season will continue Oct. 13-15 when the Mids take part in the Old Dominion Invitational.
