Box Score ROME, Ga. - Berry Men's Tennis opened up their season against Division II Shorter with a win, 5-3.

Both teams played a gritty match.

The first match was tight but the team toughed it out. Shorter came out playing much stronger than when the Vikings saw them in the fall and had some early leads at the #1 and #2 doubles, but Berry settled in and got to work with some solid doubles play, winning in a tiebreaker at #1 doubles 8-7 (8-6), 8-6 at #2 doubles, and dominated in #3 doubles 8-2.

The men swept all the doubles and were leading 3-0 going in to the singles matches.

Coach Doug Elly said that "the team has been working on winning at least two of the three doubles matches all season long, and we put that into action in our match today!"

In the singles, Berry again took Shorter by surprise. Jace Goode came through with his 11-9 thirds set tiebreaker win at #5 singles to clinch the match before the rain stopped play.

Scores by the Numbers:



Noah Koch and Drayton Matus defeated Shorter 8-7, 8-6
Diego Lopez and Jake Chapman defeated Shorter 8-6
Noah Koch and Jace Goode defeated Shorter 8-2



Diego Lopez fell to Shorter 2-6, 2-6
Jake Chapman fell to Shorter 3-6, 4-6
Noah Koch defeated Shorter 7-6-3, 6-2
Drayton Matus defeated Shorter 6-1, 6-5
Jace Goode defeated Shorter 4-6, 6-1, 1-0-9
Noah Koch fell to Shorter 5-7, 1-6

Up next: The team travels to Reinhart on Friday for their match beginning at 2:00 PM ET.