Men's tennis sweeps IU-Southeast 4-0 in play-to-clinch match; to play Midway Tuesday
From the outset, the Shawnee State men's tennis program showed little sign of relent against the Indiana-Southeast men's tennis program as the SSU men moved to 7-11 overall and 3-1 in River States Conference action with a 4-0 triumph over the Midway Eagles' men's tennis program over the weekend.
Shawnee State, who took 18 of the 24 contested sets in doubles play, easily rolled to victory with the No. 1 doubles unit of Zayden Rinehart and Keenen Lambert breezing past Indiana-Southeast's No. 1 doubles unit of Connor Mason and Camden Jones en route to winning each of the six sets at the slot. Ivan Wularu and Ishamael Dowuona added in a 6-4 victory in No. 2 doubles over IU-Southeast's Keith Asplund and Owen Law while Zinedine Arva Purbo and Abubakar Yakabu Lea posted a 6-2 triumph over Eric Whitehouse and Miguel Sampaio at the No. 3 doubles position.
With the doubles point already wrapped up in Shawnee State's favor, the Bears got three victories at the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 singles slots to clinch the match. Yakabu Lea nabbed a 6-2, 6-1 decision over Mason at the No. 1 slot, while Dowuona dominated Jones, collecting a 6-3, 6-1 victory at No. 2 singles. Wularu then wrapped up the match victory in Shawnee State's favor by outlasting Asplund in a highly-competitive 7-5, 6-4 match at the No. 4 position.
Rinehart, who competed at No. 6 singles, was also leading by a 4-0 margin at No. 6 singles before the match was officially sealed up.
Yakabu Lea's performance at No. 1 singles and No. 3 doubles resulted in the men's tennis program collecting its first-ever conference player of the week honor in school history. That release is at https://www.ssubears.com/sports/mten/2023-24/releases/20240415t5skzo.
The SSU men's tennis program will face Midway (Ky.) at 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon in what will be the Bears' next-to-last home match of the 2024 season as well as the final regular season River States Conference matchup of the year for the program. The RSC contest is a makeup from Tuesday, April 2, which was a rainout.
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