CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The Lee University men's tennis team recorded its second-straight win over a team in the Top 15 of the ITA rankings. Just three days after beating No. 15 Lincoln Memorial, the No. 23 Flames outlasted No. 13 Mississippi College 4-3 at the DeVos Tennis Center Saturday morning. With the win Lee improved to 8-1 overall and 4-1 in the GSC, while the Choctaws fell to 12-5, 4-3 GSC.

Quinn Groenendijk and Jip Langerhuizen upset the 13^th-ranked doubles team of Mattia Ricci and Matias Ruiz 6-1 to open doubles competition. Rytis Razminas and Francisco Guimarães beat Mikayel Avanesyan and Florian Walcher 6-3 to secure the doubles point. Stefan Mos and Filipe Krohn trailed Joshua Hinton and Charles Lefort when the No. 2 doubles match was left unfinished.

The top two singles contests were between ranked opponents. Krohn, ranked No. 14, dropped a 6-4 and 6-3 match to No. 38 Ruiz. Groenendijk, ranked No. 47, won in three sets against Ricci, ranked No. 53. The opponents split the first two sets with 6-4 scores in both before Groenendijk won the third set 6-1 to put Lee ahead 2-1.

MC recorded the equalizer with a three-set win by Walcher at No. 3 singles. Langerhuizen used an 8-6 tiebreaker to win the first set against Walcher 7-6, but Walcher won the next two sets 7-5 and 6-4.

Stefan Mos had a three-set comeback win at No. 4 singles. Avanesyan won the opening set 6-2 and Mos won the second 6-4. Mos blanked Avanesyan 6-0 to win the third set and the match. Sergio Ramirez Ocana won the first and third sets to beat Guimarães at No. 5 singles and leave the sixth position to decide the team match.

Razminas clinched a fourth point and the team victory for Lee with a 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Lucas Cavalvanti.

The Flames step back out of conference play to take on Carson-Newman University on Tuesday. The non-conference match is scheduled for 3 p.m. in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
 

Coach Patric Hynes' thoughts:
"This is always a tough battle and today wasn't any different. We got a great start with doubles. Jip and Quinn executed at a really high level. Rytis and Francisco have been playing really tough together lately in these big matches.

"Quinn does a great job making himself difficult to play against. Stefan made some great adjustments after the first set today. There was pressure on Rytis at the end today and I thought he handled the moment really well.

The other matches were all really close as well. It's normal stuff against those guys. They compete well and the competition is always strong. We'll get some rest and prepare for our next matches."