MOBILE, Ala. – With the regular season concluded, the University of South Alabama men’s tennis team will head to Lafayette, La., for the Sun Belt Conference Men’s Tennis Championships and will face the No. 7 seed Western Kentucky in the second round at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

The tournament, hosted by Louisiana-Lafayette, is scheduled to run Thursday through Saturday. Live stats for all matches will be available on the Sun Belt web site, SunBeltSports.org.

“I think this year we have four teams that can win the tournament,” said USA head coach Nick Brochu. “The seeds could be reversed and it still would be the same tournament. It’s very competitive and the teams are very close, so it will be a very good tournament.”

The second-seeded Jaguars enter the tournament with a 10-13 overall record after falling to UAB (4-1) and No. 36 Memphis (4-0) last weekend.

“The UAB match was kind of disappointing,” said Brochu. “We won the doubles point and I felt like we were strong at 4, 5 and 6. Losing to them was hard because we were looking to get a win there. Our goal against Memphis was to play how we’re going to play at the conference tournament, which is high-energy, being aggressive and playing to win, not playing not to lose. We were in a position to win so I was pleased with how we played and hopefully we can carry that over to the conference tournament.”

At last year’s SBC Championships the fourth-seeded Jaguars defeated No. 5 seed Florida Atlantic (4-1) and No. 1 seed Denver (4-3) before falling to No. 2 seed Middle Tennessee (4-1) in the championship match.

Western Kentucky is 6-13 in their spring season. The Hilltoppers picked up a 5-2 win over North Alabama on Sunday. Lance Freeman leads WKU with a 7-10 record in dual matches.

Thursday will mark the fourth official meeting between the Jaguars and Hilltoppers in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. South Alabama has blanked Western Kentucky in the past three matches.

“We haven’t played against Western Kentucky in six or seven years because of the way the draw has worked out,” said Brochu. “When you’re the second seed, it’s dangerous to look ahead to the semifinal. We would probably play Georgia State, but we don’t want to look past Western Kentucky—we have to focus on the first match. We have to get off to a good start and get used to the facility at Lafayette. Sometimes the first match is hard so we have to be ready.”

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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