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SALISBURY, Md. -- In a preview of next week's Capital Athletic Conference Semifinals, the 37th-ranked Christopher Newport men's tennis team suffered a 5-4 loss at Salisbury University. With the win, the Sea Gulls captured the No. 2 seed and will host the third-seeded Captains on Wednesday, April 22 with a championship berth on the line.

On Thursday afternoon, the teams split the singles action, meaning one of the closest doubles matches of the season would decide the match. Salisbury carried a 2-1 lead into singles, where they managed wins at 1, 2 and 5 to seal the team win. 

In doubles action, the regionally-ranked showdown between CNU's freshmen David Reed and Justin Cerny and Mary Washington's Daniel Albers and Eric Spangler certainly lived up to the highlight hype. The match would go to a tiebreaker when the two teams were locked at 8 points in the pivotal battle. Albers and Spangler would pull away in the breaker, securing a 9-8 (7-1) win to give Salisbury the lead. 

CNU won at No. 2 doubles, as junior Chiraag Shetty and sophomore Steven Boslet earned an 8-4 win over Adam Goldberger and Demetri Vrahnos. At No. 3, another very tight matchup was won by the Sea Gulls, 9-7, as CNU's Arttu Fiva and Max Katcher could not upend Sean Ngo and Shanon Gunther.

Katcher would tie the team score at 2 with a quick win at No. 6 singles, dropping Goldberger 6-0, 6-3; but the home team answered with wins at the top two lines to pull within one point of clinching the win. Reed fell to Albers at No. 1, 6-3, 6-3; and Boslet fell to Spangler at No.2, 6-2, 6-2. Not going down without a fight, the Captains responded behind wins from Shetty, over Gunther (6-4, 6-3) at No. 4, and Cerny, over Vrahnos (6-3, 6-4) at No. 3. 

That would put the deciding point on the shoulders of CNU's sophomore at No. 5, Arttu Fiva. He won the first set, 6-1, but Sean Ngo answered with a 6-4 win in the second set. Playing out a third set with the match on the line, Ngo responded on his home court with a 6-2 win. 

Both the Captains and Sea Gulls receive a first-round bye in the CAC Tournament and will square off against eachother at a time to be determined in the Semifinals on Tuesday, April 21.