NORFOLK, Va. – For the second year in a row, Norfolk State men's tennis matched up with South Carolina State in the semifinals of the MEAC Tournament, and for the second-consecutive year the top-seeded Bulldogs knocked the No. 2-seeded Spartans out with a 4-1 victory on Friday afternoon at the Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
 
The loss caps NSU's (9-6) season, while SCSU (9-5) advances to the finals on Saturday to face No. 1-seeded Morgan State.
 
The Bulldogs took the doubles point after three tightly-contested matches.
 
In second-seeded doubles, Vini Da Silva and Ignacio Guevel lost 6-2 to Aleska Daskolovic and Marcelo Rodriguez to put Norfolk State in an early hole, but the Spartans responded with a 6-2 win by Flavian Fernandez and Agustin Carrizo in the third-seeded flight.
 
In the top-seeded match Andres Alcaraz and Dan Dumitrascu fell behind 3-1 to Jakub Vitek and Juan Ramirez before winning two of the next three games to pull to within one, 4-3. The doubles teams then traded points before Vitek and Ramirez secured the doubles point with a 6-4 victory.
 
Marcelo Rodriguez scored the first singles win of the match, defeating Carrizo 6-4, 6-4 in the fifth-seeded flight to give SCSU a 2-0 advantage.
 
Dumitrascu made the score 2-1 with a 6-2, 6-2 sweep of Ramirez on court four, but the Spartans were held in check from there.
 
Vitek won in straight sets over Alcaraz, 6-4, 6-2, in the No. 2-seeded contest to give the Bulldogs a 3-1 lead. Shortly thereafter, Aleksander Stupar sent SCSU to the finals with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Guevel in the sixth-seeded flight.
 
Two matches went unfinished. At No. 1 singles, Da Silva came back from a 6-1 defeat to Vladyslav Yanchenko in the first set to win 6-3 in the second. Yanchenko led 2-1 in the uncompleted third set.
 
Fernandez dropped his first set to Daskolovic in the third-seeded flight, 6-3. The second set was knotted up at 4-4.
 
Men's tennis concludes the 2018 season with its first winning record four years, and its nine victories were the most in that same span.
 
The Bulldogs face Morgan State, who defeated Hampton 4-0 in the other semifinal, in Saturday's championship match at 12 p.m.