COLUMBIA, Ky. – Alejando Soriano started his junior season strong over the weekend, beating two Top 25 players to win the Second Annual Blue Raider Fall Classic at LWC's Henry Baughman Tennis Complex.

Soriano was 5-0 on the weekend, including a pair of long three-set wins.

"We are so proud of Alejandro and his accomplishments over the past year. He has made a commitment to his fitness, recovery and rehab and the results show," CU head coach Kyle Caven said. "He has such a good level of tennis and increasing his fitness gave him the motivation to achieve higher level results. This motivation and determination has only increased into this semester after a very solid summer tournament schedule."

Soriano started the day with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Cumberland University's Lucas Oliveria, and then beat Asbury's Joshua Abraham, 6-1, 7-6 (8). He took down Lindsey Wilson's Denis Porcic (7-6 (4), 6-3 to advance to the semifinals, where he met LWC's Edberg Espinosa, ranked No. 22 in the nation. Soriano dropped the first set to Espinosa Sunday morning, 6-4, but one the next two in tiebreakers 7-6 (4) and 7-6 (4) to win the three-hour match and advance to the afternoon final. Up next was Cumberland University's Manuel Marcelo, ranked No. 6 in the NAIA. Soriano again battled for three hours, winning the first set 7-5, but losing the second 6-4. He closed out the tournament win with a 6-3 victory in the third set.

The wins were the first of Sorinao's career against Espinosa and Marcelo. He won four or five matches against Top 50 players during the spring semester. Caven believes the performance will lead to a Top 20 ranking when the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) releases the NAIA fall rankings in November.

"He came through with two big wins versus Espinosa and then in the final versus Marcelo from Cumberland U. He has shown that he deserves to be in this category of player, and I am very proud of him. We are looking forward to Alejandro and all our players in the ITA next week," Caven said.

Sebastian Marot and Noah Swencki each had one singles win in the tournament. Nathan Bionel, Parker Jones, Eduardo Mendoza and Johan Fuzellier also competed for CU in singles action.

Soriano and Jones were the only Tigers to win a doubles match, beating Union's Diaz and Molina 8-4 in the first round.
 
Four women's players competed for CU in singles action with Anna Tumanyan and Lindy Charity winning one match each. Tumanyan and Megan Charity advanced to the women's doubles semifinals but lost 8-5 to Ana Pinto and Anna Gaprindashvili of Lindsey Wilson College. Jenna Sallee also competed for CU in singles action and with Lindy Charity in doubles.

Campbellsville's varsity tennis players will return to action Sept. 25-28 at the ITA Southeast Regional, hosted at Georgetown College. CU will host a junior varsity tournament on campus this weekend.