NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Merrimack stayed unbeaten in Northeast-10 matches with a hard-fought 5-4 victory over the Bentley men's tennis team on Friday afternoon. The Falcons won two doubles matches, but Merrimack rallied in singles.

It's the second straight tough 5-4 defeat for Bentley to a top NE-10 opponent after Tuesday's match with Adelphi. They fell to 4-3 in conference matches with three remaining, while the Warriors improved to 6-0.

To start things off Bentley won the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles matches. Brendan McCarthy (Falmouth, Maine/Falmouth) and George Samander (Willemstad, Curacao/ISC) defeated Mikhail Belov and Laurence Akwei 8-6 in the No. 1 spot, while Michael Fuca (Manchester, Mass./Manchester-Essex) and Brett Gilman (Mahwah, N.J./Mahwah) got the better of Nick Majewski and Tyler Clontz 8-5 in the No. 3 match.

Merrimack though rallied in singles play to pull out the 5-4 victory by winning four of the six matches. Bentley's winners were Samander in the No. 2 spot and Daniel Camacho (Bogota, Columbia/Colegio Nueva) in No. 6 singles. Samander bested Majewski after dropping the first set, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, while Camacho topped Alex Slobin 6-2, 6-3.

Bentley, 4^th place in the NE-10, is right back on the courts tomorrow to host Assumption for a 1:00 pm match.