Saints Go 1-2 at Oral Roberts Invite

The Seward County Saints continued their fall season this weekend, taking on a trio of four year University's in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  In a split singles/doubles format, the Saints came out of the weekend 1-2, winning a close match 5-4 over Oklahoma Baptist University while dropping 5-4 and 6-3 decisions to East Central and Oral Roberts University's. 

In their first match, the Saints took on a bonafide NCAA Division I foe in the Golden Eagles of Oral Roberts University.  The Saints played well in doubles, taking the points at the top two spots with Ondrej Nice and Przemek Zielinski teaming up to win 8-3 at #1 and Ngoni Makambwa and Alex Mosehle taking care of business 8-5 at #2.  Seward had their struggles in singles though as Tare Mariga was the only player to win his individual match as he downed Braxton Bates 6-3, 6-3 at #6. 

SEWARD COUNTY/ORAL ROBERTS BOX SCORE

Next the Saints went up against East Central University.  It was a mirror opposite of the ORU match with the Saints able to come away with just one point in doubles play, that coming at #2 where Felipe Casares and Mariga knocked off Albert Laspedria and Marc Learch 8-6.  Seward lost close matches at #1 and #3, Nice/Zielinski falling 8-6 and Makambwa/Mosehle 8-4.  After being blanked in the first set 6-0, Zielinski roared back to take the second set at #1 singles 7-5 over Alex Fillat and then won a tight 12-10 tiebreaker to put the Saints on the board in singles action.  Nice also won a three setter, downing Laspedria 6-3, 4-6, 10-4 at #4 while Mariga had little trouble with former Saint Trevor Kipping at #6, beating him 6-1, 6-4 for Seward's third singles point, but it wasn't enough as the Tigers picked up three singles points of their own to take the match 5-4. 

SEWARD COUNTY/EAST CENTRAL BOX SCORE

To wrap up the weekend, the Saints took on Oklahoma Baptist University.  Normally their strength, the Saints again struggled in doubles, losing a pair of tough matches at #1 and #2 while Casares and Mariga earned an 8-4 win at #3 to collect the Saints first point.  The Bison won at the top two spots of singles play, but Seward responded with wins at each of the bottom four, getting default wins at #3 and #5 while Nice and Alvaro Regnifo captured straight set victories at #4 and #6 to clinch the 5-4 team victory. 

SEWARD COUNTY/OKLAHOMA BAPTIST BOX SCORE

The weekend puts the Saints 2-3 for the fall season. Seward's individual match mark goes to 46-34. 

Next up for Seward is their 2015 fall finale when they travel to Roswell, New Mexico to take part in the New Mexico Military Invitational on Friday and Saturday.