After freshman Eduardo Pavia scored his final point in the Ball State Tennis Invitational Sunday morning, the freshman started pumping his fist and screamed, "Let's go Ball State!" to pump up his teammates.
Both Pavia and freshman Shaun Bussert won their individual flights in last weekend's season opener.
Pavia, who was ranked the No. 1 Puerto Rican amateur player earlier this year, said he was happy to begin his collegiate career with a victory.
"It feels really good," Pavia said. "All the hard work I've been doing has been paying off, and it just gives me confidence to play on."
In the first game of the tournament's championship match, Pavia fell behind Northern Illinois University's Brian Livingston 2-3. Then, after six hard-fought points, Pavia won the tiebreaker and the set 7-6. Pavia went on to win the second game 6-2.
Prior to the finals, Pavia defeated IPFW's Herman Kuschke, Bradley's Milos Romic and Colorado State University's Ryan Hamning in his way to winning the Singles AFlight.
In addition, Pavia and senior Danny Vidal defeated Bradley's Vuk Bloic and Milos Romic 8-6 to win the championship consolation round of the Doubles-A Flight.
"Our opponents started good, but once we started playing a little better they starting missing more, and that was because of us," Vidal said.
Bussert reached the finals of Singles-B Flight after defeating Bradley's Michael Macara in the first round, Northern Illinois Javior Bernabe in the round of 16, his own teammate Jorge Rodriguez in the quarterfinals and Northern Illinois Diego Zegarra-Ballon in the semifinals to get into the final round.
The Ball State freshman defeated Eastern Illinois' Jeff Rutherford 6-3, 6-1.
Coming off of an abdominal injury he suffered last summer, Bussert said the win helped rebuild his confidence in his ability to perform.
"I definitely feel a lot more confident in my ability to play and I feel like I am playing a lot better," Bussert said. "But I also feel like I have a little bit more to go to get everything falling into place."
Ball State coach Bill Richards was excited for his freshmen's success in the home opener.
"For freshmen to win individual championships, that's obviously pretty good," Richards said. "For Eduardo to win the A flight and for Shaun to win the B flight as freshmen, that's significant results for those guys."
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