DUDLEY, Mass. – For the eighth-straight season, the Nichols College men's tennis team will play for the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Championship as the top-seeded Bison defeated No. 4-seed Endicott College, 5-0, on Wednesday afternoon in the CCC Semifinals in Dudley, Mass.
 
The Bison (18-3) are in pursuit of their seventh-straight CCC crown, and will host No. 2-seed Eastern Nazarene College on Saturday afternoon at 12:00 p.m. The Lions cruised in their CCC Semifinal matchup with No. 3-seed Roger Williams on Wednesday, beating the Hawks 5-0 to advance. Endicott wraps up its season at 11-8 overall.
 
Sophomores Guilherme Barbosa and Peter Coletti grabbed the first point of the day for the Bison, posting an 8-3 win at No. 2 doubles over junior Keaton McCleary and freshman Daniel Rinkert. Sophomore Brandon Howard and junior Igor Markowski followed with an 8-6 win at No. 3 doubles over sophomore Thomas Brent and junior Christos Papadopoulos, while junior Blake Norton and freshman August Moeller made it a clean sweep of doubles play with an 8-4 win at the top doubles spot over senior Christopher Kirkpatrick and sophomore Charles Book.
 
Barbosa got the Bison one point closer with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Brent at No. 2 singles, and Moeller clinched the match with a win over McCleary at No. 5 singles by the exact same score.
 
The Bison held leads in all of their other matchups before the match was clinched as Howard had rallied to force a third set against Kirkpatrick at No. 1 singles and led 3-6, 6-4, 2-1. Freshman Brandon Stewart led Book 6-2, 4-2 at No. 4 singles, while sophomore Jack Donaldson led junior Anthony Rinaldi 7-5, 1-0 at No. 6 singles. Norton and Rinkert were locked in a heated contest as Norton was able to battle back and win the tiebreak in the first set, 7-6 (7-1).
 
All-Time Series
Nichols and Endicott have met 24 times in program history and the Bison lead the all-time series, 20-4. The Bison have won 14-straight in the series, including a perfect 6-0 mark against the Gulls in CCC Tournament play.