The Georgia Southern University Eagles traveled to Macon this past weekend, defeating Mercer University 4-3 in their season opener.

Two out of the three doubles teams defeated their Mercer opponents. One match featured redshirted freshman Carson Jones and senior Alex Dohetry.

“They played a phenomenal match and dominated their opponents from start to finish,” head coach Nick Zieziula said. “This was the first time we had Carson and Alex competing together; we didn’t have them compete at all in the fall. I was very impressed with the way they competed.”

In the end it came down to the number one doubles match.  Sophomore Andrew Dromsky and junior Oliver Webb won their match with a score of 9-8 thanks to also winning the tiebreaker 7-5.

“We continued to do what we needed to do to get a victory, and when the match was on the line we made shots,” Zieziula said. “They weren’t the prettiest, but we found a way to put the ball in the court.”

The only doubles match to lose was the pair of freshman Rafael Racey and senior Matthijs Verdam. They fought hard against their opponents Arnav Mohanty and Arsav Mohanty, but in the end were defeated by a score of 8-2.

During singles play, the Eagles split the wins with Mercer 3-3.

Jones won the clinching match for the Eagles, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-0.  He rallied from a 3-0 deficit to defeat Mercer’s Austin Emmett and win the final set.

“He lost the first set 6-4 and was trailing 3-0 in the second before he rallied back to win the set, setting himself up to win the tiebreaker 7-5,” Zieziula said. “It was a really gutsy performance. It was really special for him to clinch the match for us in the third set, the last match on, in his home town.”

Jones is originally from Macon, so he had a home court advantage of sorts.

“He had a lot of family and friends out at the match which was really special for him to be able to clinch that match in front of them,” Zieziula said.

“His conditioning was a really huge factor in the third set,” Zieziula said. “He was still fresh after that third set, and after fifteen to twenty minutes the other kid was just gassed, he was just totally done.”

Despite the win, the Eagles are still finding facets of the game to work on.

“We got a lot of areas that we need to improve, and we’ve got about a week and a half to work on them before we face a national ranked Georgia State team,” Zieziula said.

This weekend, the Eagles travel to Georgia State University in Atlanta to face both Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University.