CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The Lee University men's tennis team remained unbeaten with a 4-3 win over No. 8 West Florida Saturday afternoon at the DeVos Tennis Center. The Flames are receiving votes in the latest ranking and are now 5-0 overall and 2-0 in the Gulf South Conference (GSC). The Argonauts dropped to 1-1 overall and in the GSC.

"That was a tough battle, I'm very proud of our guys," said Lee head coach Patric Hynes. "West Florida are a tough team and we definitely had to work hard for that one today."

Wihan Van Der Merwe and Drew Johnston opened doubles competition with a 6-0 win over Sebastian Rondon and Santiago Kearney. Mike and Quinn Groenendijk secured the doubles point for the Flames with a 6-4 margin against Albin Ekenros and Adam Svensson. The No. 1 doubles match between Nico Ramirez and Francisco Faria  and West Florida's third-ranked doubles team of Tomas Descarrega and Facundo Bermejo was left unfinished with the score tied at 4-4.

"It's hard to single out guys on a win like that, but our doubles was excellent today. Nico was very tough in singles, it was a high quality performance. Kiko (Faria) didn't have his best start, but he's always going to be there. Wihan played at a super high level all day today and he and Drew gave us important momentum in doubles. Quinn and Mike were really solid in doubles today, they have given us a lot on the doubles court," Hynes said.

Faria push the Lee advantage to 2-0 with a three-set win over Descarrega at No. 2 singles. Descarrega won the opening set 6-1 before Faria fought back to claim the next two sets 6-4 and 6-1.

Kearney ended Lee's shutout bid with a 6-4, 6-4 score against Jordi Dasi. Ramirez won the first and third sets in his No. 1 singles match with Bermejo, ranked No. 24, to place Lee on the brink of winning. Ramirez won the first set 6-4, dropped the second 6-2 and completed the win 6-3 in the third set. Van Der Merwe took down Bernardo Costa 6-0, 6-3 at the fourth position to secure the team victory.

Mateo Martinez and Rondon closed the gap with a pair of wins in the final two singles matches. Martinez edged Johnston 7-5, 6-2 at No. 5 singles, while Rondon needed three sets to defeat Quinn Groenendijk at No. 6 singles.

"Very proud of our team. We need to get recovered and ready to battle King tomorrow," added Hynes.

The non-conference matchup with King is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the DeVos Tennis Center.