VALDOSTA, Ga.- The No. 6 West Florida men's tennis team had their season come to an end against No. 2 Valdosta State 4-1 on Saturday morning in the NCAA South Regional Championship.

UWF concludes their season with a 16-5 overall and 7-2 conference record. The Blazers improve to a perfect 19-0 record and will advance to the NCAA finals from May 12-16 in Orlando, Florida.

"I'm really proud of the guys and the way they fight today. We were just points away from winning today but the important thing was the fact that the guys left everything on the court. We have no regrets after our match today. The boys played hard and gave it all they had. This season we just continued to focus on the process and try to get a little bit better each and every day and I think the guys did that as they continued to work hard," commented head coach Derrick Racine.

HOW IT HAPPENED
In doubles, the Argos battled, but came up short to VSU. Facundo Bermejo and Tomas Descarrega dropped their match to No. 15 doubles team in the country Rodrigo Carvalho and Luca Mack 6-3 as No. 1.

Adam Svensson and Albin Ekenros could not come up on top as they fell 6-2 to Pedro Cordeiro and Christian Wedel from the No. 3 position. Bernardo Costa and Sebastian Rondon were unable to finish their match due to the Blazers securing the lone doubles point. The score was tied 4-4 when doubles concluded.

Heading into singles, the Blazers had the 1-0 advantage from doubles.

Valdosta State increased their lead 2-0 when Descarrega fell to No. 2 singles player in the nation Luca Mack 6-1, 6-2 from court 1.

Rondon put up quite a fight but was unable to come up with the victory as he fell in three sets 6-1, 3-6, 3-6 as No. 4.

Joaquin Estevez was victorious in his match from the No. 6 position to give the Argos a point. The sophomore from Buenos Aires, Argentina won 7-5, 6-4.
It was VSU's Rodrigo Carvalho who won the clinching point over Bermejo from the No. 2 position. The match came down to three sets as Carvalho won 3-6, 6-4, 4-6 to clinch the match for the Blazers.

Santiago Kearney and Mateo Martinez were in the third set of their matches when the match concluded. Kearney was up 5-4 in the third set as No. 3 and Martinez was up 3-1 in his match from the No. 5 singles.

"We started off the season slow and really improved pretty much every step of the way. We had four seniors who fought super hard today and were instrumental in our success this season and we also had four and five younger players, but this is a learning process for them. It was a good experience for them to get into the regional and to just see how close we are to have a legitimate shot to win the NCAA national title," said Racine. 

The Argos had a great run this season with a 16-5 record and named one of the top Division II men's tennis programs in the country. UWF had another perfect 8-0 record at home. They made their 26^th NCAA Regional Tournament appearance on the year.

How to Follow the Argos: For complete information on UWF Tennis, follow the team @TennisUWF on Twitter and @uwf_menstennis on Instagram.