NORTHFIELD, Vt. – A doubles sweep as well as masterful singles play by Kevin Blisniuk and Mitchell Lance saved the day Saturday afternoon as the Emerson Men's Tennis Team put up a huge win over the Norwich Cadets in a down-to-the-wire 5-4 win. The win pushes the Lions to 4-4 on the season and 3-1 in conference play while the Cadets fell to 6-3 overall and 2-2 in the conference.

In doubles action the Lions thrived as senior captain Ken Nikravesh returned to action on the year where he paired up with Kevin Blisniuk to make quick work of Christian Hoskey and Ryan Grindle with an 8-1 win in the number one spot before James Landino and Zack Connolly pulled in with an 8-3 win in the three spot over Brandon Carver and Anthony Verno.

 In what turned out to be a huge lynchpin in the Lions win Mitchell Lance and Brent Walkoff battled off a gritty win over Collin Hyte and Zach Reichelt where the Lions finally surged to an 8-6 win and the sweep.

In singles action the Cadets marched back in singles though as Norwich stormed back to take wins in the two, four, five and six spots to pull the Cadets ahead 4-3. The Lions had heart though in the match as Mitchell Lance evened it up 4-4 with a 6-4, 6-3 straight sets sweep over Ryan Grindle to bring it down to the marquee match-up on court one between Kevin Blisniuk and Collin Hyte.

The match proved to be one to give the fans their moneys worth as Blisniuk took the first set in an impressive 6-3 win before Hyte pushed back in the second set with both battling back and forth for the lead until Hyte pushed Blisniuk to a super tie breaker to decide the match. In a grit-fest between the two, it boiled down to Blisniuk finally putting away the two points he needed to bury Hyte and finish the W for the Lions 7-5.

Up next the Lions will hit the courts again on Thursday as they travel to MIT to face the Engineers in Cambridge.