BATON ROUGE — LSU won its fourth-straight SEC match Friday over 24th-ranked Arkansas, 5-2.
The victory came in response to one of the Tigers biggest disappointments of the season, a Wednesday loss to No. 27 Tulane.
“I think our guys deserve a lot of credit,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “They went from being about as tired and flat as they could be in the Tulane match to being fired up for a solid Arkansas team.”
LSU (14-4, 6-3) had won its last three matches before Tulane and is now one win behind SEC West-leading Ole Miss. They swept Alabama and Auburn this past weekend.
“We showed that our priorities are with our SEC matches and that we want to end this season with intensity,” Brown said.
The Tigers took close matches at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles to win the doubles point. Bryan Fisher, Sebastian Rutka and Cory Ross fired off straight-set singles wins in the bottom three positions to extend LSU’s lead.
LSU’s 28th-ranked freshman, Ken Skupski, added a three set win at No. 1 singles over 83rd-ranked Nathan Price to ice the win.
The Arkansas match was LSU’s fourth straight on the road. They will end their away-stretch Sunday at Tulsa at 1 p.m. before returning to Baton Rouge to close the regular season against Florida and South Carolina.
“Tulsa has played a lot of teams closely this season, and we understand how that can go either way,” Brown said.
#13 LSU 5, #24 Arkansas, 2
Singles:
No.1 #28 Ken Skupski (LSU) def. #83 Nathan Price (AR), 4-6,6-3,7-6(5)
No.2 #19 Adrians Zguns (AR) def. Jason Hazley (LSU), 4-6, 6-2, 7-5
No.3 Rohan Gajjar (AR) def. Peter Richman (LSU), 6-2, 6-4
No.4 Bryan Fisher (LSU) def. Matt Simpson (AR), 6-2, 6-3
No.5 Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Matt Roberts (AR), 6-1, 6-4
No.6 Cory Ross (LSU) def. Imraan Ismail (AR), 6-2, 7-5
Doubles:
No.1 #26 Bryan Fisher/Jason Hazley (LSU) def. #45 Nathan Price/Matt Simpson (AR), 8-6
No.2 #41 Cory Ross/Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Matt Roberts/Imraan Ismail (AR), 8-6
No.3 Adrians Zguns/Rohan Gajjar (AR) def. Peter Richmond/Ken Skupski (LSU), 9-8