Ferris State Men's Tennis Advances To GLIAC Tournament Championship Match!

Big Rapids, Mich. - The nationally-ranked Ferris State University men's tennis team will have an opportunity to defend its Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Tournament Championship as the Bulldogs advanced to the league title match by downing Hillsdale 5-1 on Saturday (April 22) in semifinal-round action at the league event in Midland.

Top-seeded Ferris State, which captured the league's regular-season title this year, will now square off against sixth-seeded rival Northwood in the league final on Sunday (April 23) morning starting at 8:30 a.m. (ET) at the Midland Community Tennis Center.

After receiving a first-round bye, the Bulldogs made quick work of the fifth-seeded Chargers. FSU took a 2-1 lead following the doubles round and swept the first three completed singles flights to move to 17-2 overall this season.

The Bulldogs got singles wins from the bottom three flights in the lineup with Nur Adim Ramdani Iswan, Daniil Tarantinov and Pablo Munoz Baroja all winning in straight-sets at the fourth, fifth and sixth flights, respectively.

In doubles action, the tandem of Vasil Surduk and Iswan were victorious by an 8-3 count at the second spot in the lineup with Rob Camplin and Raleigh Grossbaum teaming up for an 8-1 triumph at the third flight.

The Bulldogs, who are ranked 15th nationally, are the defending league tournament champions. A year ago, Ferris State captured both the GLIAC Regular-Season and Tournament titles in the same campaign for the first time since 1994 when the tourney was structured in an individual-based format and not the current team dual format.

Last weekend, FSU officially claimed its third-straight league regular-season crown by finishing GLIAC play with a perfect 9-0 record this year. Two years ago, in 2015, Ferris State had won its first league regular-season championship since 1999 and first outright crown since 1994. 

Prior to the current three-year stretch, Northwood had won the previous 20 regular-season crowns in a row dating back to 1995, including a share of the title with FSU in 1999. Either Northwood or Ferris State have won the GLIAC Championship every year since 1982. The two schools shared the crown in 1982 before FSU had a 12-year run as the outright champion before the NU stretch.

Five years ago, in 2012, Ferris State claimed its first GLIAC Tournament Championship since 1999 with a stunning 5-4 triumph over Northwood in the title match.  FSU previously finished as the runner-up to Northwood seven consecutive seasons from 2000-06 and then placed fifth in 2006-07, fourth in 2007-08 and were third overall in 2008-09 before also finishing third in 2010-11. NU topped the Bulldogs 5-2 in the 2013 GLIAC Tourney title match before FSU took fourth place in 2014. In 2015, the Bulldogs again advanced to the final, but fell to Northwood 5-3 in Midland. However, last season, the Bulldogs reclaimed the crown with a 5-2 win over Grand Valley State.

The Bulldogs, who have currently won their last 11 matches in a row to date this year heading into Sunday's title match, are also presently the number one team in the Midwest Region.

The complete boxscore can be found at this link:
http://ferrisstatebulldogs.com/sports/mten/2016-17/files/MTennis_Scorecard_FS-HC.pdf