The Luther men’s tennis team stepped outside the Central Region for a pair of matches on its second day of competition in Orlando, Fla., and opened with an 8-1 victory against Oglethorpe.  Luther once again took the lead in doubles and then swept the six singles matches while improving to 10-3 overall this season.

Scott Sundstrom and Ramesh Karki scored the first point of the match with an (8-4) win over Ethan Motz and Rajiv Dinakaran at No. 1.  Joe LaFountaine and Tyler Van Heest also stepped up with a key win at No. 3 doubles, rallying from a 3-5 deficit to win (8-5) against Cedric Andre and Chris Borne.  Oglethorpe picked up an (8-6) win at No. 2 to tally its lone point of the match.

Luther won in straight sets at four of the six singles slots while also earning three set victories at No. 1 and No. 6.  Karki cruised to a (6-1, 6-1) win against Ben Hirsch at No. 2 and Mozena rolled to a (6-3, 6-0) victory over Dinakaran at No. 3.  Bellio was a singles winner for the second straight day, defeating Borne (6-3, 6-1) at No. 4 while James Ayer held off a late charge from Chris Noonburg to win (6-0, 7-5).  Sundstrom rebounded from a tough second set to defeat Motz (6-0, 2-6, 6-1) at No. 1.  Torstein Jystad held on for a (6-1, 1-6, 7-5) victory over Jeremiah Farmer at No. 6.

Box Score