AVE MARIA, Fla.- The Ave Maria University men's tennis team earned their biggest win of the 2024 season, defeating the No. 12 team in the nation, the Mariners of the College of Coastal Georgia, by a 4-2 score Sunday afternoon at the AMU Tennis Complex. Ave Maria won the doubles point, then earned three crucial singles victories to knock off the nationally ranked Mariners. It marked AMU's first win this season against a nationally ranked opponent, with each of the Gyrenes' five losses coming to such teams.

AMU got off to a good start against the Mariners, claiming the doubles point with wins at the second and third flights. Ave Maria's second team of Tom Alias picked up a 6-4 win, while the third team of brothers Pedro and Juan Ignacio Garcia rolled to a 6-2 win. In the lone unfinished doubles match, Ave Maria's nationally ranked team of Gaston Erhardt and Anderson Duggan, the 39th-seeded duo in the nation, were looking to force a tiebreaker at the top doubles flight, trailing by a 6-5 score.

The biggest win of the day for the Gyrenes was provided by Tom Alias at the second singles flight. The Frenchman outclassed the 29th ranked player in the nation, Coastal Georgia's Adrien Guye, en route to a 6-3, 6-2 win. Ave Maria's nationally ranked player, No. 47 Gaston Erhardt, handled his business, dropping just one point in a 6-0, 6-1 over the Mariners' Lucas Landaluce.

Juan Ignacio Garcia provided Ave Maria's other singles win, a 6-4, 6-4 triumph at the fifth flight. Coastal Georgia's wins came at the third and sixth flights, with both Mariner wins coming in straight sets. The lone match to head to a third set remained unfinished as Coastal Georgia's Kevin Leuenberger and Ave Maria's Pedro Garcia split two sets, 1-6, 7-6, but was abandoned when the Gyrenes secured the upset over the Mariners.

Ave Maria will break for the Easter holiday, with eight days between the Coastal Georgia match and the next contest. That matchup - AMU's last road affair of the regular season - will see the Gyrenes battle the Sailfish of Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach on April 2. It will be a rematch of a battle in Ave Maria earlier in the season, when the Gyrenes picked up a win over the NCAA Division II Sailfish, 4-3, at the AMU Tennis Complex on February 20.