Middleton, Mass. – Second-seeded Merrimack College recorded a 5-1 victory over the third-seeded Le Moyne College men's tennis team in the Northeast-10 Conference Championship semifinals on Thursday afternoon at the Northeast Tennis Center.

The Warriors opened match by winning the doubles competition, 2-1. The Dolphins earned the first point of the day as juniors Xavier Graells (Castellar del Vallès, Spain/IES Castellar/Harford Community College) and Tyler Underwood (Minoa, N.Y./East Syracuse-Minoa) defeated Tyler Clontz and Paul Weidinger at the third spot, 8-3, for their 14th straight victory. Merrimack evened the match at one apiece as Alex Fedorov and Denis Davydov recorded an 8-5 win at the second position over junior Andres Hernandez (Monterrey, Mexico/Laurel Springs/Texas Rio Grande Valley) and senior Jason Barton (Lima, Ohio/Shawnee), snapping the Le Moyne duo's 10-match win streak. Mikhail Belov and Frank Vega gave Merrimack the lead in the match by rallying from a 7-5 deficit to defeat sophomore Philip Blythe (Edinburgh, Scotland/Merchiston) and Hallam Doney (Andover, Hampshire/Peter Symonds) at the top spot, 9-8 (7-4).

In the singles competition, the Warriors won the first three points to finish to claim the victory. At the second position, Davydov avenged a regular season loss to Hernandez by recording a 6-2, 6-1 victory. Belov collected the point at the first position against Blythe, 6-3, 6-1. Vega closed out the match by registering back-to-back scores of 6-4 at the third spot against Graells, ending his nine-match win streak.
 
Le Moyne (13-5), which had its 10-match win streak ended, now awaits a potential berth into the NCAA Championships. The championship field, including the East Region's six selections, will be announced on NCAA.com on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. In this week's rankings, the final one before the field announcement, the Dolphins were sixth.