OWENSBORO, Ky. – It went down to the wire, but top-seeded Tiffin rose to the top with a league title to celebrate the conclusion of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men’s Tennis Championship on Saturday. 
 
The Dragons completed the regular-season title and tournament title sweep with a 4-2 win over No. 2 seed Findlay in the first year as a member in the Great Midwest.
 
Tiffin was coming off a win in the semifinals over No. 4 Walsh while Findlay had toppled No. 3 seed Hillsdale on Friday. 
 
Tiffin, currently ranked 10th in the region, will now await the NCAA Selection Show on Tuesday, May 7, at 8 p.m. ET to determine if its body of work will merit an at-large selection to the Midwest Regional. 
 
The Great Midwest is in the first of two years competing with six active men’s tennis members and will qualify for an automatic qualifying bid after that requirement is met. 
 
The Dragons and Oilers left it all on the Owensboro Centre Courts with three different singles matches lasting a grueling three sets to determine an eventual winner. 
 
Even doubles were filled with theatrics as a tiebreaker ultimately gave Tiffin a decisive point from the combo of Hugo Chatras and Sorin Navrotchi in the No. 3 matchup. The Dragons also had the upper hand in the No. 2 duel with Tom Arias and Gabriel de Oliveira pulling out a 6-2 win. 
 
The Oilers came through in the No. 1 matchup as Tomas Kmetko, the league’s player of the year and first team all-conference selection Jorge Barnuevo pulled away for a big win. 
 
Kmetko and Tiffin No. 1 Santiago de la Rosa Mora simply went at it in the top singles flight. Kmetko won the first set, 7-5, before de la Rosa Mora answered with a 6-2 win in the second set. 
 
In the end, it was Kmetko, a graduate student transfer from Tusculum to come away with a hard-earned victory. 
 
UF received a similar gutsy effort from Carlos Blanco as he gave the Oilers another team point in a battle vs. Sorin Navrotchi. Blanco bounced back from an opening-set setback to win the next two sets. 
 
Nikita Parfenov also won a three-set thriller, this time in favor for the Dragons. Tiffin’s Cutting and Chatras also took care of business in their respective singles matchups while Tom Arias and Eduardo Munoz were in a tiebreaker as the lone unfinished duel.