Knights and Bulldogs tangle Eagles in weekend showdowns

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.—The Carson-Newman men's tennis team will look to pick up win No. 4 and 5 on the season as the Eagles host Bellermine on Friday afternoon and South Atlantic Conference favorite Wingate Saturday morning.

The Knights (3-3) come to Mossy Creek on Friday for a 2:00 p.m. start time while the Bulldogs (10-3, 4-0) will square off against C-N (3-5, 2-2) Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m.  

Bellarmine competes in the Great Lake Valley Conference and lost its last outing of the season against the University of Missouri—St. Louis 1-8 on March 15. The Knights will be looking to breakout of their current even record this weekend and get back on the winning track as they were a season ago where Bellarmine finished 11-4 overall.  

Wingate stands as the next obstacle for Carson-Newman amongst league play as the Bulldogs have picked up right where they left off a season ago (15-5 overall) by defending their SAC crown to date with an undefeated conference slate.

As expected, Wingate tallied nine of the 12 first-place votes cast in the preseason poll and welcome four preseason selections who got the nod for all-league.

Aamir Zari and Connor Kudrick are back for the Bulldogs after combining for an 8-6 record in doubles a season ago. Filippo Pezzoli comes back for a junior campaign after picking up 19 wins and Sebastian Hall was also added to the list following 2015's 14-5 singles record. 

Kudrick and Zari were also named to the preseason singles team after combining for 27 wins a season ago. 

On Saturday, the Eagles will be looking to make it three SAC wins in-a-row with a rout of the Bulldogs.

A full recap following each day of action can be found at cneagles.com. For live updates on Carson-Newman tennis, follow @CNathletics on twitter.   

-CN-