Tribe Outlasted by Oklahoma at Rice Invite

Freshman Keziel Juneau won his third straight match at the Rice Invitational.

03/25/07 3:30PM

Houston, Texas - The No. 33 William and Mary men’s tennis team dropped its final match of the 46th Annual Rice Invitational to event’s champion, No. 52 Oklahoma, 4-2, on March 25. The College claimed the opening point of the contest in doubles, but the Sooners were able to claim four of the five completed singles matches to tally the victory. W&M fell to 14-9 overall, while Oklahoma upped its mark to 16-2 after going a perfect 3-0 at the Invite.

W&M opened the contest winning the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles slots to claim the initial points for the College. Senior Colin O’Brien and sophomore Dominic Pagon claimed an 8-5 triumph over Marek Velicka and Ryan Thomas at the No. 3 position. The tandem point came down to the No. 1 position with junior Alex Cojanu and freshman Keziel Juneau coming through for the Tribe. The pair defeated Andrei Daescu and Vaclav Kucera, 9-7, at the top spot to claim the point.

Juneau won his third straight match of the competition at the No. 3 singles position. The Repentigny, Quebec native disposed of Velicka, 6-3, 6-3, improving to 22-15 overall. Juneau has won 14 of his last 15 matches. Oklahoma was able to even the contest at two with straight sets wins at the No. 1 and No. 4 positions.

The battle came down to a trio of three-set affairs at the No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 slots. Oklahoma took the lead, 3-2, with a victory at the No. 6 position, before Federico Chavarria outlasted sophomore Alex Zuck at the No. 5 position. Zuck took the opening set, 6-4, before Chavarria evened the contest with a 6-3 win in the second set. The decisive third set came down to a tiebreaker as Chavarria clinched the OU win with a 7-6 (3) win.

W&M will have a week off before hosting CAA foe Old Dominion on Tuesday, April 3, at the Busch Courts. The contest is slated for a 4:30 p.m. start time. Old Dominion is 12-4 and 2-0 in the CAA following a 4-3 win over No. 20 VCU on March 24. The Monarchs are ranked No. 26 nationally and earlier this season held the highest ranking in school history at No. 25.

#52 Oklahoma 4, #33 William & Mary 2
Singles
No. 1 - #83 Vaclav Kucera (OU) def. Alex Cojanu (W&M) - 6-4, 6-2
No. 2 - #78 Andrei Daescu (OU) vs. #99 Colin O'Brien (W&M) - 4-6, 6-1, 4-4, unfinished
No. 3 - Keziel Juneau (W&M) def. Marek Velicka (OU) - 6-3, 6-3
No. 4 - Rob McKenzie (OU) def. Marwan Ramadan (W&M) - 6-4, 6-0
No. 5 - Federico Chavarria (OU) def. Alex Zuck (W&M) - 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3)
No. 6 - Sergey Avdeyev (OU) def. Kavi Sud (W&M) - 6-2, 6-7, 6-2

Doubles
No. 1 - #39 Cojanu/Juneau (W&M) def. Daescu/Kucera (OU) - 9-7
No. 2 - McKenzie/Chavarria (OU) def. Sud/Zuck (W&M) - 8-4
No. 3 - O'Brien/Pagon (W&M) def. Velicka/Thomas (OU) - 8-5