NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk State men's tennis preserved an unblemished mark in MEAC Northern Division competition with a 6-1 victory over Hampton on Thursday at the NSU Tennis Complex.
 
The Spartans (7-4, 2-0) took two out of three in doubles action to secure the early 1-0 advantage. Flavian Fernandez and Agustin Carrizo began the outing with a 6-1 win over Charles Hudson and Fernando Fernandes in the third-seeded flight.
 
The Pirates (1-11, 1-2) then pulled even with a 6-3 win by Matt Foster-Estwick and Davy Van Geerke over Andres Alcaraz and Dan Dumitrascu in the top-seeded match. Vini Da Silva and Ignacio Guevel broke the tie with a 6-3 victory against Fedor Shirin and Peter Odegbami in the second-seeded flight.
 
NSU took the first three singles matches to clinch the win.
 
At No. 3 singles, Fernandez bested Van Geerke 6-2, 6-1. Alcaraz then brought the Spartans to the brink with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Fernandes in the second-seeded flight.
 
Da Silva clinched the match for NSU with a hotly-contested 6-3, 6-4 win over Foster-Estwick in the top-seeded match.
 
With the match in hand, the Spartans continued rolling, winning two of the final three matches.
 
Carrizo won 6-0, 6-2 over Hudson in fifth-seeded singles. Guevel then picked up a win after Shirin retired late in the second set. Guevel won the first set 6-2 and was up 4-1 at the time of Shirin's retirement.
 
Hampton's lone win of the day came in the final match. At fourth-seeded singles, Luke Thompson edged out Dumitrascu 10-5 in a third-set super tiebreaker. Dumitrascu went ahead early, taking the first set 6-2 before falling 6-3 in the second.
 
The Spartans host Morgan State on Sunday at 3 p.m. in a match that could decide the MEAC Northern Division race. The Bears currently sit atop the division with a 3-0 mark in conference games.