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April 29, 2009
Southeast Region Tournament Bracket | Tournament Website
 INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The Mars Hill men's tennis team will begin its march towards a National Championship on May 7. The Lions will take on No. 17-ranked Francis Marion at 2 p.m. at Armstrong Atlantic in Savannah, Ga., the preliminary-round site for the Southeast Region of the NCAA Tournament.
The Lions are 13-5 overall and won their first South Atlantic Conference championship in school history on April 23 with a 5-1 victory over Tusculum. With the SAC tournament championship, Mars Hill claimed the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs after receiving an at-large bid last season.
Mars Hill's Alessandro du Besse (Rome, Italy) was named the SAC Men's Tennis Player of the Year. In addition to du Besse, Koeche Smith (Nassau, Bahamas) was also named First Team All-SAC.
Francis Marion is 15-5 overall. The Patriots earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament this season after losing to USC Aiken, 5-2, in the first round of the Peach Belt Conference Tournament.
Francis Marion's Oshada Wijemanne (Colombo, Sri Lanka) and Dilshod Sharifi (Dushanbe, Tajikistan) were named First Team All-PBC as a men's doubles duo. Wijemanne was also a First Team singles selection, and Sharifi was tabbed for the Second Team singles squad.
The winner of the Mars Hill/Francis Marion match will take on USC Aiken on May 8 at 2 p.m.
The 16 preliminary-round tournaments will be conducted May 7-9, with the winner of each preliminary-round tournament advancing to the finals hosted by the Central Florida Sports Commission and Rollins College, May 13-16, in Altamonte Springs, Fla.
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