Eagles Debut at SoCal Intercollegiate Tourney

Tournament Draws 

(11/3/07 - Men's Tennis) LOS ANGELES - All-American Tim Kpulun won a pair of matches and advanced to the quarterfinal round in singles to highlight a four-player contingent that took part in the 51st Annual Southern California Intercollegiate Tennis Championships, last week at the Los Angeles Tennis Club.

Kpulun and three of his teammates competed in the prestigious event that included entries from UCLA, Pepperdine, USC and Loyola Marymount. He opened play with a 6-2, 6-2 win over John Park of UC Riverside, then added a second straight-sets win over Daniel Hwang of BYU, 6-3, 6-3.

Moving on to the quarterfinal round, Kpulun faced off against Harel Srugo of UCLA, ranked #16 in the College Tennis Online NCAA Division I singles rankings. Kpulun dropped a hard-fought first set in a tiebreaker, 7-5, but bounced back to dominate the second set for a 6-1 win. One break of serve proved to be the difference in the final set as the UCLA standout posted a 6-3 win to knock out the Eagles' top-ranked player.

Two of the other three players also picked up one win in the tournament. Daniel Ndlela posted a convincing 6-2, 6-1 win over Sebastian Ko of UC Riverside before falling 3-6, 6-1, (8-10) to GSAC-rival Robby Dabbs of Azusa Pacific. Newcomer Olivier Fabre met a similar fate, edging Nick Van der Ahe of Loyola Marymount 2-6, 6-4, (10-6) before coming up short against Cassidy Mears of BYU, 1-6, 3-6.

Chris Nguyen was the other Eagle to compete in singles competition, but dropped his opening match to Tom Young of BYU, 6-3, 6-1. Nguyen and Ndlela competed in doubles and were edged out by a team from UCSB, 8-6. Kpulun and Fabre also lost their opener in the doubles draw to Stuart Keplar and Alex Moreno of Pepperdine, 8-3.

Concordia opens up the 2008 season at home on Saturday, January 26 against Occidental with first serves firing off at 1:00 p.m.