BATON ROUGE, La. — Southern Miss men’s tennis fell to No. 6 LSU 6-1 Sunday evening at the LSU Tennis Complex, according to university athletics.
The Golden Eagles, now 5-5, earned their only point when Saheb Sodhi defeated LSU’s Matias Ponce De Leon in three sets. Sodhi took the first set in a tiebreak, lost the second, then won the third 6-3 to secure the match win.
LSU claimed the doubles point with victories on courts two and three. Matias Ponce De Leon and Enzo Kohlmann defeated Sodhi and Eric Perkowski 6-3, while Alessio Vasquez and Calin Stirbu posted a 6-2 win over Jose Murariu and Matei Varbanciu. The No. 1 doubles match between Kale Mize and Jay Temming and LSU’s No. 66 tandem of Sasa Markovic and Andrej Loncarevic was left unfinished at 5-4.
In singles play, LSU quickly built its lead. Erik Arutiunian, ranked 54th nationally, defeated Mize 6-2, 6-2 on court one. Enzo Kohlmann earned a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Olle Noltorp at No. 4, and Vasquez outlasted Murariu 6-3, 7-5 at No. 2. LSU also won on courts five and six, with Rudy Ceccon beating Perkowski 7-5, 6-3 and Calin Stirbu defeating Varbanciu 6-7 (6-8), 6-1, 10-4 in a super tiebreaker.
The match was Southern Miss’ only scheduled contest in Baton Rouge after a previous cancellation. LSU entered the weekend ranked sixth nationally and had recently defeated No. 2 Texas 4-3 on Friday. The Golden Eagles will return home March 13 to host Omaha for Senior Day before traveling to San Antonio for matches against UIW and UTSA next week.
