Johnson City, Tenn. -- The East Tennessee State men's tennis team rallied from a 3-0 deficit to defeat Georgia Southern 4-3 in a Southern Conference match from Statesboro, Ga. this afternoon.

Georgia Southern claimed two of three doubles matches to bolt to a 1-0 lead. At No. 1 doubles, Ryan O'Keefe and Florian Scheidat defeated Gustavo Gomez and Roberto Fernandez, 9-8. The No. 2 doubles match also belonged to the Eagles as Wojciech Nowak and Darren Clark claimed a 8-5 win over Marcos Pavlovich and Juan Yannuzzi. Pablo Sahagun and David Poole helped salvage one doubles match by defeating Uli Ebersberger and Alex Franqui 8-4.

In singles action, the Eagles went up 2-0 as Antonio Bugge dropped his match at No. 6 singles to Alex Franqui 6-4,6-0. Things started looking grim for the Bucs as Pavlovich was forced to retire in the second set of his No. 2 singles match with Nowak with the score 3-6,3-0, due to an ankle injury.

With the score 3-0, the Bucs battled back. Gomez took his match at No. 1 singles with a 6-4,6-3 win over O'Keefe. At No. 3 singles Sahagun defeated Scheidat by a 6-1,3-6,6-4 count. No. 5 singles finished next with Fernandez claiming a 6-1, 6-4 win over Ebersberger. Juan Yannuzzi clinched the win for the Bucs with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Clark at No. 4 singles.

"We lost the doubles point and then went down 2-0 with (Antonio) Bugge's loss," said head coach Dave Mullins. "We then went down 3-0 when (Marcos) Pavlovich got hurt and had to retire. I have to give it to our guys. They battled back and it ended up as a very hard fought win. We needed this win and we pulled it out."

With the win, the Bucs improve to 7-7 on the year and 4-1 in the Southern Conference. The Bucs will continue their road trip as they have a pair of matches tomorrow. The first being a Southern Conference tilt against The Citadel at 9:00 a.m. The second match of the day will be at 3:00 p.m. against Charleston Southern. The Bucs will also play Sunday at 11:00 a.m. against Brown University.

Singles 1. Gustavo Gomez (ETSU) def. Ryan O’Keefe (GSU) 6-4,6-3 2. Wojciech Nowak (GSU) def. Marcos Pavlovich (ETSU) 3-6, 3-0, ret. 3. Pablo Sahagun (ETSU) def. Florian Scheidat (GSU) 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 4. Juan Yannuzzi (ETSU) def. Darren Clark (GSU) 7-5,6-4 5. Roberto Fernandez (ETSU) def. Uli Ebersberger (GSU) 6-1,6-4 6. Alex Franqui (GSU) def. Antonio Bugge (ETSU) 6-4, 6-0

Doubles 1. O’Keefe/Scheidat (GSU) def. Gomez/Fernandez (ETSU) 9-8 2. Nowak/Clark (GSU) def. Pavlovich/Yannuzzi (ETSU) 8-5 3. Sahagun/Poole (ETSU) def. Ebersberger/Franqui (GSU) 8-4