West Palm Beach, Fla. (April 25, 2025) – Returning to action for the first time in ten days, the Rollins men's tennis team took to the courts on Friday morning hoping to survive and advance. Friday morning's quarterfinal match kicked off the Sunshine State Conference Championships hosted by Palm Beach Atlantic and pitted the #5 seeded Tars against #4 Embry-Riddle.
The two teams met nearly two months ago. Back on February 27th, the Tars clinched their first home conference match of the season with a narrow, 4-3 victory. This time, with a semifinals date with #1 seed Barry on the line, the stakes were even higher. Embry-Riddle jumped out in front by grabbing the doubles point behind victories on courts two and three to begin Friday's action. Number one doubles duo
Luke Quaynor and
Richard Stoiberer found themselves in a tight battle when their match was left unfinished due to the Eagles clinching the point.
In the long run, the shortened match might have been beneficial for Stoiberer, as the junior cruised to a straight set victory defeating Embry-Riddle's Michele Iftimie for the second time this season. Stoiberer's 6-2, 6-4 win put the Tars on the board with their first singles point of the match. Just before Stoiberer's finish, though, the Eagles grabbed a singles point themselves on court six as
Pietro Cappellaro fell, 6-2, 6-1.
After dropping his doubles match,
Fabian Gusic found his stride competing in singles on court three. The junior transfer avenged his singles loss back in February with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 victory to pull the Tars even with the Eagles with three matches to be decided.
Embry-Riddle retook the lead in a tightly contested number one singles match as
Luke Quaynor fell just short, losing 6-4, 5-7, 3-6. Unfortunately, the overall match would conclude when the Eagles found victory on court two as well. After dropping the first set,
Nico de Giacomo fought back to grab a 6-4 win in set number two. But the Eagles' Enrico Rosellini nabbed the deciding third set to seal a singles victory and to ice the overall match. On court four,
Mo Anterist was left unfinished after his battle went into a third and final set as well.
Officially, it goes into the books as a 4-2 win for Embry-Riddle who moves on to play top seeded Barry tomorrow morning. After the tight, well-fought match, head coach
Jay Friedman had this to say, "The end found us today. Perhaps too soon."
The Tars finish the season at 12-9. We applaud seniors
Luke Quaynor and
Phillip McMurray on tremendous careers, each of whom contributed to the Rollins community on and off the court.
