March 24, 2007

Central scores a sweep

PELLA —The Central College men's tennis team improved to 9-5 on the year with wins over Nebraska Wesleyan and the University of Dubuque at the A.N. Kuyper Athletics Complex courts Saturday.

The Dutch won a closely contested match with Nebraska Wesleyan 5-4 in the morning and rolled past Dubuque 8-1 in the afternoon.

“The Nebraska Wesleyan match was a big win for us,” said coach Greg Gilmore. “They're a very good team.”

Central won two of three doubles matches before splitting in singles play, highlighted by a three-set comeback victory at No. 1 singles by Jared Feddersen (junior, Fort Dodge) .

“Jared Feddersen came back after a tough first set to win his match,” said Gilmore. “Plus our strong doubles play helped a lot.

The Dutch proceeded to sweep doubles action in the afternoon against Dubuque and won all but one of their singles matches.

“We switched our line-up around a little to get some more guys playing time,” said Gilmore.

Feddersen, Chris Bliss (junior, Ottumwa ) , and Devin Bates (senior, Romeoville , Ill , Matoon HS) each won a pair of singles matches on the day. Feddersen and Luke Boyd (freshman, Fort Dodge) teamed up for two doubles wins as well as Bliss and Justin Scherff (junior, Denison) .

“It was nice to get two wins today,” said Gilmore.

Central travels to Decorah next Saturday for a triangular with conference opponents Luther and Loras with matches scheduled for 9 a.m. and noon, respectively. The Norse downed Central 6-1 in regular season play last year and 4-0 in the conference tournament. Central and Loras never met last season but the Dutch swept the Duhawks 7-0 in 2005.