The Youngstown State men's tennis team won four singles matches to rally for a win while handing Cleveland State its first Horizon League loss since April 2018 on Friday afternoon at the YSU Indoor Tennis Center.
The Penguins (6-8 and 1-0) trailed in the match 3-1 before winning the final three singles contests in dramatic fashion over the Vikings (5-10 and 0-1). Laurentiu Mandocescu capped off the comeback with a thrilling three set victory at No. 1 singles giving YSU its first win over Cleveland State since April 2017.
CSU won the doubles point by winning two of three matches and took home straight set victories at No. 1 and No. 5.
David Alvarez Moreno got the Guins on the board with a strong 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 6 over Raul Teichmann.
The Guins had leads in all three remaining matches.
The first to get YSU within 3-2 was Harry Fouzas who claimed a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Kade Mindry at No. 3 singles.
Soon after Clement Mainguy tied the contest with a 6-1, 7-6 (8-6) win at No. 4 against CSU's JuandeDios Abboud. Mainguy cruised to the first set win before trailing for most of the second set. He rallied to take a 6-5 lead, but Abboud forced a tiebreaker. Abboud won the first five points of the breaker before Mainguy went on a 6-0 run. After Abbound staved off a match point, Mainguy won the final two points claiming the victory and tying the contest.
At No. 1, Mandocescu picked up a 7-5 first set win over Maxime Mareschal-Hay and had a commanding 4-1 lead in the second set. However, Mareschal-Hay battled back for a 7-5 win and force a winner-take-all third-set. With the contest tied 3-3, Mandocescu trailed 40-0, but was able to break Mareschal-Hay to go in front 4-3. Mandocescu held serve taking a 5-3 lead before Mareschal-Hay closed within 5-4. On match point, the return of a Mandocescu serve by Mareschal-Hay was long and the Penguins claimed the memorable 4-3 victory.
The Penguins close out their first weekend of Horizon League action with a dual against Northern Kentucky on Sunday. First serve is set for 1 p.m. at the YSU Indoor Tennis Center.
