Cougars Fall to Top-Ranked Valdosta State in NCAA Semifinal

Altamonte Springs, Fla. --  Columbus State's historic venture into the NCAA Division II Tennis Championship ended on Friday in a semifinal match with top-ranked Valdosta State. The Blazers earned a 5-0 win over CSU to move into Saturday's title match.

VSU won all three doubles points and that was just too much for the Cougars to overcome. Had CSU won one doubles match, the Cougars would have had a chance to steal a win as they were leading in three singles matches and had fallen 7-5 in the first set of another when play ended.

Top-ranked Philip Pakebusch and Michael Kuech defeated the Cougar duo of Frank Suarez/Christophe Noblet at number one doubles to get things started for VSU. The closest match was at number two where Olivier Simonet and Nemanja Djuric fell to #19 Daniel Dueren and Christian Hansen by an 8-5 score. Filip Cojbasic and Daniel Stomberg fell victim to Otto Lenhart and Frank Sickman by an 8-4 score.

VSU quickly ended the match in singles when #3 Pakebusch and #5 Dueren won their matches over Suarez and Diego Motivar by identical 6-0, 6-1 scores at numbers one and two. When play was halted, Stomberg and Noblet were up a set after convincing first-set wins in their matches, while Simonet lost a hard-fought 7-5 first set at number three. Djuric was down 4-3 in the first set of his match when play was halted.

VSU (24-1) will face Barry University in Saturday's championship match. Barry defeated Concordia (NY) 5-0 and sits at 22-4 on the season.