Sept. 24, 2007

Final Stats

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy tennis team tallied a winning record in singles at the North Carolina Fall Invitational Tennis Tournament, held this past weekend at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center on the school's campus in Chapel Hill, N.C.

"I thought we played very well this weekend, especially in singles," said Navy head coach John Officer. "There were a lot of good players and teams participating at the tournament, so to finish with the results we did against that level of competition is very pleasing."

Four of Navy's eight players won their opening round singles matches to advance to the championship half of their respective flights. Jason Hill (Jr., Marietta, Ga.) put together the best weekend among the Mids. Hill won a pair of matches in one of the two 'B' flights before dropping a three-set decision to Davidson's Ethan Jaffe in the semifinal round.

Joining Hill in advancing to the championship side of their brackets were Nate Nelms (Jr., St. Mary's, Ga.), Alex James (Sr., Visalia, Calif.) and Owen Bullard (Fr., Concord, N.C.). Nelms competed in one of the 'A' flights, James was in the opposite 'B' flight from Hill and Bullard competed in one of the two 'C' flights. Additionally, Johnny Waters (Jr., Papillion, Neb.) advanced to the consolation final of the second 'A' flight.

The Mids recorded singles victories over players from teams such as Richmond, High Point, East Carolina, North Carolina State and North Carolina over the three-day event.

While half of Navy's eight players qualified for the championship side of their singles draw, only one of Navy's three doubles teams accomplished the feat. The team of Nelms and Waters posted an 8-6 victory over Duke's duo of Aaron Carpenter and David Liu in the opening round of the 'A' flight before the Mids lost in the semifinal round to North Carolina's tandem of Lenny Gullan and David Stone.

"We have some areas we need to work on in doubles," said Officer. "We struggled with handling the pace this weekend. Two of our doubles losses were by the score of 9-7 and another one came in a tiebreaker, however, so we were right there in pretty much all of the matches."

Navy's fall season will continue Oct. 12-14 when the Mids take part in the Old Dominion Invitational in Hampton Roads, Va.