MANCHESTER, N.H. – Despite several close matches, top seed Southern N.H. advanced to the Northeast-10 finals with a 5-2 victory over fourth seed Bentley in the semifinals on Friday afternoon. The Falcons won the No. 3 doubles and No. 2 singles matches.

The Penmen jumped out to a 2-1 lead after the doubles matches. They led 2-0 after they won the No.2 and No. 1 matches. Bentley's No. 1 team of Brendan McCarthy (Falmouth, Maine/Falmouth) and George Samander (Willemstad, Curacao/ISC) fought back from an early deficit, but opponents Miguel Marreiros and Tiago Fernandes won the last several games to take it 8-4.

The No. 3 match which Bentley won pitted freshmen Brett Gilman (Mahwah, N.J./Mahwah) and Michael Fuca (Manchester, Mass./Manchester-Essex) against Sebastian Ramirez and Jeremy Reichentahl. In a back and forth match, the Falcons' team won it in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (7-1) to give Bentley a point from the three doubles matches.

In singles, Southern jumped out to a 4-1 lead after Fernandes won the No. 4 match and Xavier Aubron the No. 3 match. Bentley though got back in it when Samander finished off Marreiros 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 to cut the deficit to 4-2.

That left the No. 1, No. 5 and No. 6 matches still on the court. The No. 1 match, which proved to be the deciding point for Southern, went three sets between Bentley's McCarthy and Southern's Ricardo Marreiros. Marreiros took the first set 6-2 before McCarthy stormed back in the 2^nd and took it 6-1. However, Marreiros emerged in the 3^rd set and clinched the match by winning the set 6-3.

Bentley's record fell to 16-7 and snapped a five-match winning streak. Ranked 8^th in the latest East Region rankings, they will await word on selection to the NCAA Tournament.