The Southern Miss Men‘s Tennis team made its home debut in a weekend doubleheader this past weekend.

After going 1-1 in their first two matches of the season, the Golden Eagles return home to play their first match in front of the home crowd. They made their home debut against Jackson State University this past Friday before getting on the road for a Sunday matchup versus Samford.

Sophomore player Kale Mize describes the pressure of two big games going into the weekend.

“If we pull two solid wins here, I definitely think we’ll do some damage inside the conference,” said Mize. “Which, that’s what I’m mainly excited about, but I tell the guys to go out there and be bold and be themselves out there and play free.”

Head Coach Zubin Engineer shared his mindset going into this weekend’s double-header.

“We would love to win every game we play,” said Engineer. “And it‘s just a matter of–on that day–which team executes the best and has the best opportunity. And our team is ready, I think we’re ready to execute and play our games and play freely.”

And Southern Miss executed well on Friday. The Golden Eagles started off their match versus Jackson State with a set of doubles matches to claim the first point of the match. After a dominant 6-1 win by sophomores Kale Mize and Jay Temming, and another victory by graduate student Eric Perkowski and senior Saheb Sodhi, Southern Miss claimed their first point of the match.

Following the doubles match was six singles matches of three games. Each singles match is a best-of-three games to claim another point for the teams, and the first team with four points collectively wins the match.

Sophomore Jose Murariu claimed another point for Southern Miss after back-to-back 6-2 victories in his singles match. Perkowski followed right behind Murariu with another singles match win for the Golden Eagles to take a massive 3-0 lead over Jackson State. Freshmen

Matei Varbanciu closed the match out for Southern Miss with another singles victory, completely shutting out Jackson State before they could win a game.

On Sunday, the Golden Eagles battled on the road against the Samford Bulldogs. Mize and Murariu fought hard in their singles matches, pushing both matches to their third game. Despite the fight, Southern Miss got shut out 4-0. This loss keeps them at an even 2-2 on the season as they look to bounce back at home versus Alcorn State on Feb. 24.