Sept. 15, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy tennis team totaled four singles victories over the combined team of Maryland and Princeton Saturday morning as part of the Navy Invitational being held on The Yard.

"We had a better day than we did Friday," said Navy head coach John Officer in comparing the day's results to the opening day of the tournament when the Mids tallied just one singles and one doubles victory against the combined team of Arkansas and Oklahoma. "We started slow in doubles today, but came back to play strong in singles."

Picking up singles victories on the day were Nate Nelms (Jr., St. Mary's, Ga.) at No. 1 singles, Jason Hill (Jr., Marietta, Ga.) at No. 3, Ramsey Lemaich (So., Danville, Calif.) at No. 4 and Nick Birger (Fr., Belleville, Ill.) at No. 8. Nelms, Hill and Lemaich all won their matches in straight sets, while Birger won a 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-2) match against Princeton's Jeff Luse.

Lemaich was the lone Mid to win a singles match Friday.

Additionally in singles, Navy players had opportunities to win the first set of a pair of other matches. Both Johnny Waters (Jr., Papillion, Neb.) and Jarrad Smoke (So., Belmar, N.J.) served to win the first sets of their matches at the Nos. 2 and 6 flights, respectively. Waters would end up losing the first set to Nicolai Nielsen of Maryland by a score of 7-5, then dropped the second set and the match by a score of 6-1. Smoke too served for the first set of his match to Maryland's Alex Aksanov, but was broken before going on to lose the opening set in a tiebreaker. Aksanov would go on to close out Smoke in the second set by the score of 6-0.

The singles matched followed the doubles portion of the day, which saw Navy drop each of the four matches.

The three-day tournament ends Sunday with Maryland/Princeton playing Arkansas/Oklahoma at 8 a.m. and Navy taking on St. Joseph's at 2 p.m.

Singles
1 - Nate Nelms (N) def. David Kwon (MD), 6-4, 6-2
2 - Nicolai Nielsen (MD) def. Johnny Waters (N), 7-5, 6-1
3 - Jason Hill (N) def. Jonathan Leslie (P), 6-1, 6-4
4 - Ramsey Lemaich (N) def. Mark Gober (P), 7-5, 6-4
5 - Aaron Carr (MD) def. Alex James (N), 6-1, 6-1
6 - Alex Aksanov (MD) def. Jarrad Smoke (N), 7-6 (7-2), 6-0
7 - Ilya Trubov (P) def. Owen Bullard (N), 6-4, 6-4
8 - Nick Birger (N) def. Jeff Luse (P), 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-4)

Doubles
1 - Kwon/Nielsen (MD) def. Nelms/Waters (N), 8-6
2 - Gober/Leslie (P) def. James/Lemaich (N), 8-5
3 - Aksanov/Mike Coleman (MD) def. Hill/Smoke (N), 8-5
4 - Luse/Trubov (P) def. Bullard/Joseph Wiggins (N), 8-1