JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—No. 68-ranked and second-seeded University of North Florida men's tennis defeated Florida Gulf Coast, 4-2, Saturday afternoon in the Atlantic Sun Championship semifinals at the UNF Tennis Complex.

"It's hard to say just how great of a team win this was because of so many great individual performances today," said head coach Mark Finnegan. "All of the guys put their heart and soul into this match and the crowd was so amazing. I was a great day to be an Osprey. I was so happy for Zach to clinch the match for us cramping and facing adversity. He should be so proud of himself. He truly deserved this victory. CJ and FGCU are a class act. We are going to rest up and enjoy another great battle with ETSU tomorrow. Hopefully our fans will come out and support the team again by packing the nest." 
 
On Friday morning, the Atlantic Sun Men's Tennis' Player of the Year Jordi Vives and Dean Tsamas defeated Caio Gomes and Yannick Zuern 8-6 at the No. 1 doubles position, before the match was suspended for rain. In the resumption of play on Saturday, UNF's Bernardo Craveiro and Pablo Tellez downed Lucas Vaz and Chris Perrigan 8-6 at No. 3 to even the doubles score at 1-1. The doubles point came down to UNF's Norbert Nemcsek and Zach Goldberg and Tianyu Bao and Lance Lvovsky of FGCU. With Nemcsek and Goldberg up 6-5,  Bao and Lvovsky fought back to force a tiebreaker at 7-7, where they grabbed the doubles point with a 7-2 decision.
 
In singles, the Ospreys grabbed two quick singles wins to take a 2-1 lead in the match. Nemcsek trounced Bao 6-2, 6-2 at No. 2 singles, while at No. 3, Zuern downed Tsamas 6-0, 6-2. Vives evened the match score at 2-2 after topping Gomes 7-5, 6-1 in the top spot. Craveiro then posted a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Vaz setting up the thrilling final matches.
 
At the fifth position, Goldberg dropped the first set 6-2 to Lvovsky, but responded with a 6-4 win in set two to force a decisive third set. Goldberg led 3-0 in the third, before Lvovsky tied it up at 3. Goldberg would take the next three games en route to winning 6-3 and sending the Ospreys to the championship match on Sunday. Pablo Tellez forced a third-set against Gabe Echeverry at No. 6 before the match was halted following Goldberg's clinching win.
 
The No. 2 seed Ospreys face top-seed ETSU in the A-Sun Championship final on Sunday morning at 11 a.m., at the UNF Tennis Complex. UNF and ETSU will be meeting in the tournament championship for the third consecutive year.