POUGHKEEPSIE, New York – The Marist men's tennis team dropped a hard fought match to the current Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference leading, Monmouth Hawks, 5-2 Sunday afternoon at the Marist Tennis Pavilion. The Red Foxes wrap up their regular season at 7-5 overall and 5-2 in conference.

"An exciting culminating match for our last match in the MAAC," said head coach Tim Smith. "Anytime five of your singles go to three sets your team has really competed. As I said to our players, a few points either way and the score could've easily been different."

Monmouth took early control of the match winning all three of the doubles matches, 7-5, 6-3, and 6-4. Monmouth then picked up wins at third and fifth singles to jump ahead before Lars Schouten won by retirement at the fourth set and Rudolf Kurz picked up a bit three-set win at second singles. Kurz defeated Srdjan Jakovljevic, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

After splitting the first two sets, Javier Restrepo and Nicola Pipoli battled in the third. Pipoli would eventually prevail, 6-3, clinching the overall match for Monmouth.

In another three-set match, Max Darrington and Sergio Martinez fought to end with Martinez taking the final set 6-2.

"I truly believe we're peaking at the right time and the guys are excited about going to the MAAC championships next weekend," Smith said. "I also want to compliment Rudi and Javi for making statements to our team about the importance of believing we can go all the way and giving encouraging words to our young players after the match."

UP NEXT
The Red Foxes will head to the MAAC Championship semifinals as the third seed and take on the Quinnipiac Bobcats in the first round of play on Saturday.