Carvalho, No. 2 Blazers beat Argos in South Regional

Apr. 29—VALDOSTA — Playing its most bitter rival for a spot in the NCAA Division II Championship, No. 2 Valdosta State got all it could handle from No. 6 West Florida Saturday.

In the end, it was Brazilian Rodrigo Carvalho that pushed the Blazers over the top.

Following No. 1 Luca Mack's 1-hour and 19-minute thrashing of Tomas Descarrega, fellow German Christian Wedel bounced back from a shaky first set to beat Sebastian Rondon 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in 2 hours and 13 minutes — giving the Blazers a 3-0 advantage.

The Argos picked up their first singles point at No. 6 as Joaquin Estevez knocked off VSU's Pedro Cordeiro 7-5, 6-4 in 2 hours and 13 minutes.

Leading 3-1, the Blazers needed No. 2 Carvalho or No. 3 Lamar Bartley to clinch the victory as both matches reached a deciding third set.

Facing the Argos' Facundo Bermejo, Carvalho won the first set 6-3, but dropped the second set 6-4 — nearly chucking his racket in frustration on the changeover.

Carvalho regained his composure in the third set, breaking Bermejo to take a 5-2 lead. However, as the Argos' did throughout the morning, Bermejo refused to go away.

Bermejo broke Carvalho to stave off a match point to make it 5-3, putting the pressure on Carvalho to serve out the match.

Carvalho put together perhaps his best service game of the match, as he quickly jumped ahead 40-0 for match point. After narrowly missing a forehand wide, Carvalho rebounded by using heavy topspin forehands to push Bermejo back and move him around the baseline. A forehand to Bermejo's backhand forced an error into the net to give Carvalho the victory 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in a grueling 2 hours and 40 minutes.

"I was trying to stay as calm as possible because when you're playing like that, to clinch, it's not so easy. A lot of things go through your mind," Carvalho said. "I was just trying to play as I was playing, to be calm and I couldn't do it at 5-2. Then on his serve at 5-3, I couldn't break him. It was a close game, but up 5-4, I felt that I started the points a little bit better with the serve.

"I hit some good first serves right there and it helped me build the game and win the points to finish it. ... It's a good feeling. This is my first time going to nationals — probably a few of our guys also — so I'm very proud of the team and what we have done already in the regular season and what we keep doing. I'm very happy and very excited to go to nationals."

Though Carvalho was focused on winning the match, he admitted he started feeling the pressure building as all eyes went to his match on Court 2.

"A little bit, yes," Carvalho said, smiling. "I cannot say that I didn't but me and the guys, we've been playing this sport so long and competing since we were 12 years old so I think we're a little bit more experienced — especially me, now that I'm a senior. The experience helped me out a little bit, but for sure, I felt the pressure. I was fortunate, even though I was feeling the pressure, I managed to play my best tennis."

After dropping two of the three doubles matches, the Argos looked like they would fade quickly with Mack and Carvalho rolling early in singles.

Instead, the Argos began to rally behind Rondon's strong first set over Wedel and Estevez's straight sets win over Cordeiro.

At No. 5, Mateo Martinez and VSU's Christian Felline split sets and Martinez was leading 3-1 before the match was called. At No. 3, Bartley rallied from a set down to take the second set 6-2 against Santiago Kearney, but trailed 5-4 in the third when the match was called due to Carvalho's clincher.

Saturday's matchup was another page in the VSU-West Florida rivalry — one that saw the Blazers prevail after falling to the Argos twice last postseason. The Blazers lost the Gulf South Conference Championship to the Argos 4-1 before being edged out 4-3 in the first round of last year's NCAA South Regional.

This season, the Blazers swept the Argos — defeating them 6-1 back on April 10 and eliminating the Argos from the postseason Saturday.

"We've always had a great rivalry with West Florida and I can't tell you how many times that match has ended up just like this where we are up and then all of the sudden, there they are — they're ready to take us down," VSU head coach John Hansen said. "We had every opportunity to go down, but we were fortunate. Rod just sucked it up and had match points in the next to last game and then he pulled it through right there at the end. We were very lucky.

"It helps when somebody like Luca Mack, both in singles and doubles, leads the way. The pressure was really on the rest of the guys to come through, and they did. ... This year, and I think Derrick (Racine) at West Florida would tell you also, the teams that are winning the most are the ones that have the strength down at the bottom of the lineup. (Assistant coach) Nick Rosatti is the one that got all these guys together. He's the guy you ought to be talking to right now."

At No. 1, Mack managed to raise his level in spite of some gamesmanship from Descarrega. Mack swatted away the Argentine 6-1 in the first set and ran out to a 4-0 lead in the second set when antics came into play.

Descarrega broke Mack after a shaky service game and upon winning a point to secure the game, Descarrega bellowed "Vamos!" while pumping his fists and staring in Mack's direction for several seconds before returning to the baseline.

Not forgetting the excessive celebration, Mack volleyed a winner down the line soon after and crouched down a few feet from the net with his index finger over his lips — making sure Descarrega saw him before unleashing a loud and lengthy celebration of his own as he went up 5-2.

"I was up 4-0 in the second set and then I lost two deuce points and he got a little pumped up," Mack said of the exchange. "It was just important to then win another deuce to go up 5-2 and not go to 4-3. It was important to get that 5-2 and calm him down a little bit.

"With West Florida, it's always chippy and I guess at one point, everyone tries something to get themselves back in the game but I think that's why it's also fun. and it's college — I think everyone knows this happens at one point in your match probably, but that makes it fun."

Another aspect that added to the emotions on court was the large crowd that filled the bleachers on Saturday.

With the support of their home crowd as well as a few West Florida supporters sprinkled about, every point, fist pump and exultation felt bigger than the one before it.

"For sure, they helped us a lot through the whole season," Mack said of the large crowd for Saturday's matches. "Last year, all of our big, important matches were away and now, we had them basically here all year and I think that was a really big factor for the whole team. They really helped us a lot through the whole season, not just today."

With the win, the Blazers improved to 19-0 this season and punched their ticket to the NCAA Division II Men's Tennis Championships in Orlando May 11-16.

After defeating the No. 1 team in the country on two different occasions and vanquishing their arch rivals on their road to nationals, Carvalho and the Blazers have proven they are a championship-caliber team.

"It's great to be honest," Carvalho said. "Now we can see that hard work's paying off. We've been working so hard this semester. We've got a mutual goal. We've all had the same growth and throughout the season, we already felt we had chances and now we've just proved to ourselves that we are capable of doing anything, you know? We go there with confidence. We know what we can do and yeah, hope for the best."

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.