MOUNT BERRY, Ga. - On a pleasant Saturday afternoon at the Rome Tennis Center, the men were tasked with playing Sewanee which is the top team in the SAA but fell 4-3 in a tight match.

Berry approached their doubles matches with a strategic focus of holding serve and waiting for the right moment to pounce and break serve. All three doubles teams followed through on their strategy, but Sewanee did not give an opening on their own serve. All three of Berry's doubles teams narrowly lost with single breaks of serve, but the closeness of the competition gave the men the mental boost they needed for singles.

Jace Goode at third singles led the charge for Berry College by grinding against an aggressive baseliner and making almost no unforced errors in a 6-4, 6-1 victory. Jake Chapman at first singles lost the first set, but found the mental zone and produced remarkable passing shots en route to a deciding 10-point tiebreak, where he played nearly perfectly to win 10-4. With Aiden Benoualid at second, Leo Nedkov at fourth, and Anderson Lambert at fifth losing in straight sets, Sewanee had secured the overall win 4-2. However, this did not phase Xavier Deckard at sixth singles, who played against a control, slice specialist by applying patience, counter attacking with strong groundstrokes from the baseline as needed to win his match and finish the match count as 4-3 Sewanee.

Following this strong performance against the best team in the conference, Berry will look to beat Centre tomorrow and secure their spot in the year-end conference tournament.