CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Citadel will have a busy weekend on the tennis courts as it plays four matches across the next three days, beginning with its Southern Conference opener against Wofford on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the Earle Tennis Center.
That match against Wofford will double as the first home match of the season for the Bulldogs, who will remain at home on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. to battle USC Sumter. With the weekend matches concluded, The Citadel will head back out on the road for a doubleheader against NAIA powerhouse Georgia Gwinnett on Monday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
In its last time out, The Citadel (3-4) picked up a pair of wins over Methodist last Saturday afternoon, dropping just one point in the 9-0 and 8-1 victories.
Zvonko Bencedic,
Josiah Schainblatt and
Phillip Quinn all earned four combined victories across singles and doubles in the two matches that featured non-traditional scoring, where each individual doubles match counted as a point rather than the usual best-of-three format.
Wofford (2-3) is coming off a 7-0 sweep of North Greenville in its last time out on Thursday afternoon and earned its other win in a 6-1 decision against Gardner-Webb on Feb. 16. The Bulldogs have dropped 12 straight matches against the Terriers and will be seeking their first win in the series since a 4-3 victory on Feb. 25, 2008.
On Sunday, The Citadel will take on USC Sumter (1-3), who picked up its lone win of the year thus far in a 7-0 sweep of Spartanburg Methodist on Feb. 6. The Bulldogs and Fire Ants were originally scheduled to meet earlier in February but had the match cancelled due to inclement weather.
Georgia Gwinnett (8-0) is the top-ranked NAIA squad in the nation and has dropped only three points across its first eight matches. The Grizzlies have won the last six NAIA national championships and own the second-longest winning streak in collegiate sports history, having won 131 consecutive matches in a streak that began on April 4, 2015.
Following these bouts, The Citadel will be off for the week before returning to action with a pair of matches against South Carolina State and Presbyterian next weekend. The Bulldogs will resume SoCon play on March 14 against Chattanooga at the Earle Tennis Center.
