April 28, 2024
Ferris State men’s tennis team tops Wayne State to win GLIAC Tournament Championship
The Ferris State University men's tennis squad completed a season sweep of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament championships as the top-seeded Bulldogs defeated No. 2 seed Wayne State University by a 4-3 score on Sunday in the league's postseason title match at the Midland Tennis Center.
Ferris State claimed the GLIAC Tournament title for the fifth time in the last eight times it has been awarded, beating the Warriors for the second time this year, and avenging a setback to WSU in last season's championship match.
"What an unbelievable day," said FSU head coach Mark Doren. "The grit and determination that we showed today was amazing. We had a goal of not just winning the regular season, but to win the tournament today and for it to come the way it did, down to the last match was special.
"We overcame some adversity at the end, and it was awesome to do this with such a great group of young men," he added.
Ferris State took the doubles point by winning two of the three flights, claiming both two doubles and three doubles, before taking the first two completed singles flights in straight sets to build a 3-0 match lead. The Bulldogs' Esunge Ndumbe was victorious 6-4, 6-2 at one singles and Alessandro Santangelo captured a 6-1, 6-1 win at five singles.
However, Wayne State rallied, and the Warriors tied the match up 3-3 with a straight-set win at two singles to go with three-set triumphs at three and six singles.
The match came down to four singles where Bulldog senior Jan Koupil emerged victorious in a grueling and lengthy three-set showdown, topping WSU's Denali Kitayama 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 for the win.
Ferris State, which is now 17-4 overall, most recently also swept the GLIAC's regular-season and tournament titles from 2016-18 along with 2021. This year's league tournament championship was the Bulldogs' first postseason championship in three years.
The Bulldogs, who were ranked second in the most recent NCAA D2 Midwest Regional Rankings, will next take part in the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Tournament with the official pairings and teams making the field slated to be announced on May 6.