ORLANDO — The No. 23-ranked Southwestern men's team concluded a successful trip to Florida with a 6-3 victory over the No. 21-ranked Kenyon College Lords.

Southwestern went 3-1 on the road with victories over Rhodes and No. 13 Wesleyan. The lone defeat was against top-ranked Case Western Reserve University. 

The Pirates gained the upper hand sweeping the three doubles matches. Vesko Lekovic and Hemanshu Rambojun eked out a nailbiter with an 8-7 victory over Luis Andrew Platas and Thomas Kallarakal in No. 1 doubles. 

Hunter Bajoit and Jared Burton defeated Christian Picot and Christopher LeBlanc 8-4 in No. 2 doubles, and Oscar Roy and Carlos Esteban Rodero completed the sweep with an 8-6 victory over Rishil Kondapaneni and Eric Zhang in the third spot. 

"Our doubles was outstanding tonight at all three lines," Southwestern head tennis coach Billy Porter says. "For Vesko and Hemanshu to pull out that breaker was huge for us to complete the sweep."

Kenyon battled tough in singles. Kondapaneni shut out Lekovic with a pair of 6-0 sets to take the match in No. 2 singles. Kallarakal bested Anton Borovik 6-2, 6-2 in No. 3 singles, and Jacob Smith scored a three-set victory over Burton in No. 6 singles, winning 1-6, 6-3, 10-7. 

"We were in cruise control for the first half of singles. Then, Kenyon found another gear and made things extremely tight," Porter says. "We weathered the storm just enough to hold them off."

Bajoit won a three-set victory over Platas in No. 1 singles by scores of 6-3, 2-6, 10-5. Steven Tibbetts defeated Zhang 4-6, 6-2, 10-1 in No. 4 singles, and Roy won a 6-1, 7-6 victory over Jack Wagner, taking the tiebreaker 7-3. 

"Our assistant coach Tosha Smith did a stellar job tonight and played a big part in No. 1 doubles and Hunter clinching at No. 1 singles," Porter says. 

Southwestern improves to 5-4. The Pirates will host Ozarks on Tuesday, March 22, at 5:00 p.m., and Chicago on Thursday, March 24 at 5:00 p.m