In an epic tennis marathon of four-plus hours, No. 4 Drury outlasted No. 2 Valdosta State 5-3 at the Homer Ford Tennis Center Thursday to reach the national semifinals of the NCAA-II Men's Tennis Championships.
The Panthers, 25-2 after their 20th consecutive victory, will take on fifth-ranked Barry (21-4) at 1 p.m. Friday in the semifinals at the Memorial Park Tennis Center. Third-ranked West Florida (24-4) will face top-ranked Armstrong Atlantic (29-0) in Friday's other semifinal, with the two winners to square off at 1 p.m. Saturday for the national championship.
Armstrong Atlantic beat Lynn 5-3 and West Florida edged Concordia 5-4 on Thursday.
Drury coach Amine Boustani said his Panthers lost the first two matches in doubles, and were behind in the third - at No. 3 - before Florian Perche and Nahom Serekeberhan rallied for an 8-6 victory and a point that gave the squad an emotional boost on a day when wet weather and limited courts made momentum hard to maintain.
"That really gave our guys a lift," Boustani said. "I told the guys after doubles that now it was going to be all about heart, legs and guts. And they went out and did it."
The Panthers then came out in singles and picked up victories by senior Stefan Borg at No. 1, by freshman Anton Khadasevich at No. 4, by sophomore Antonio Garcia Santos at No. 5 and by senior Nikola Prpic at No. 6 to claim the match, the final three all in grueling, three-set affairs that left nearly a half-dozen combined players battling cramps in the Houston humidity before all was said and done.
Valdosta, which had defeated Drury 5-4 in a regular season match in Valdosta, Ga., finished 15-6.
The Panthers, in the NCAA-II Tournament field for an 11th straight year, have now reached the Final Four for just the third time in the program's history and the first time since 2002, when they finished as national runner-up.

NCAA-II Championships
Drury 5, Valdosta State 3

Doubles
#1 Ekkenga/Jelinek (VSU) def. Borg/Prpic (DU), 8-3
#2 Halb/Malobicky (VSU) def. Khadasevich/Levi (DU), 8-4
#3 Florian Perche/Serekeberhan (DU) def. Kuech/Lenhart (VSU), 8-6

Singles
#1 Stefan Borg (DU) def. Florian Halb (VSU), 6-3, 7-6 (0)
#2 Joerg Ekkenga (VSU) def. Federico Levi (DU), 7-6 (4), 6-2
#3 Nahom Serekeberhan (DU) vs. Leos Jelinek (VSU), DNF
#4 Anton Khadasevich (DU) def. Richard Malobicky (VSU) 7-5, 5-7, 6-3
#5 Antonio Garcia (DU) def. Otto Lenhart (VSU), 2-6, 6-1, 7-6
#6 Nikola Prpic (DU) vs. Michael Kuech (VSU), 7-6, 2-6, 6-4