UT Permian Basin Tennis continues to show they will be a force in the near future after going toe to toe with a pair of the best programs in the JUCO and Division II levels.  The men and women split against Collin College before taking Southeastern Oklahoma, the defending Great American Conference women's champion, down to the wire.

The men opened the day victorious over Collin College, 4-3.  Takumi Katsuda and Jonas Krahofer needed a tiebreaker to take the No. 1 doubles match while Paul Schwieger and Vitaliy Horovoy won on the No. 3 line, 6-2.  The singles play was a tightly contested one, with both sides winning three.  Horovoy won in straight sets while Patryk Kosinski and Grezgorz Rudnicki gutted out wins to clinch the victory.

On the women's side doubles was incredibly close, with all three matches going in favor of Collin College 6-4.  The Falcons got back on track in singles getting wins from Lisa Guitton, Brooke Runyan, and Montse Salazar, each in two sets.  The No. 1 line ended up being the deciding match with Collin College pulling it out in three sets.

Facing against Southeastern Oklahoma, the men took the doubles point with wins again on the No. 1 and No. 3 lines.  Rudnicki was the lone winner in singles play, taking it in straight sets for the 4-2 final in favor of the Savage Storm.

The defending GAC champions took all they could handle from the Falcons.  The Falcons took the doubles point with wins by No. 1 team Jenny Nguyen and Rhea Singh and No. 2 team Teodora Vrucan and Salazar.  Vrucan and Salazar took their singles matches to put the Falcons in line for the win.  Things were tight but the Savage Storm came out on top 4-3.

"The men took on two very talented, well coached teams," said Head Coach Alex Hunt. Collin College and Southeastern Oklahoma State came to play today. Greg Rudnicki came up with a clutch clinching point to secure the win. Against Southeastern Oklahoma State we completely dominated doubles, showing how dominant we can be, but they fought back and took four singles matches from us to beat us 4-3. There were lots of good things we saw today on the doubles court. I'd say we are currently playing as a top doubles team in the country, we just have to figure out the singles lineup a bit. Luckily, that's what these first few weeks are for, so we will learn from this and move forward. Lots of good things coming in our future.

"The women had a tough outing today," he continued. "Against Collin College, we came out slow and that cost us because the doubles point got away from us very quickly. We bounced back in singles and fought like crazy to force a 3-3 tie heading into the last singles match on court, but the last singles match just happened to go the way of Collin College. The women, then, almost pulled off one of the biggest upsets in program history against Southeastern Oklahoma State. The girls came out fiery in doubles, winning the doubles point with wins at number 1 and 2. We then went into singles where Teodora and Montse won. Unfortunately for us, Southeastern Oklahoma State recovered very well and played at an extremely high level on the majority of the singles courts. The Falcon women's team fought hard today and I'm proud of them. Now it's on to tomorrow when we face off against Division I University of Texas at Arlington. The future of UTPB women's tennis looks promising."

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