April 18, 2004
BATON ROUGE, La. – South Carolina wrapped up the regular season Sunday in Baton Rouge, falling to the 14th-ranked Tigers of LSU, 4-1. South Carolina now turns to the SEC Tournament, where they will face the host-Vanderbilt Commodores Thursday, April 22.
The doubles point fell to the Tigers as Tom Eklund and Marcus Westman fell to 41st-ranked Cory Ross and Sebastian Rutka at No. 2 doubles, 8-3. Ken Skupski and Danny Bryan then topped the Gamecock tandem of Ben Atkinson and Carl Wermee, 8-5, at No. 3 doubles to give LSU a 1-0 lead in the match.
In singles action, Carl Wermee fell to Peter Richman at No. 3 singles, 6-2, 6-3. Pedro Rodrigues then fell at No. 6 singles 6-4, 6-2 to Cory Ross as LSU took a 3-0 lead in the match. Tom Eklund put Carolina on the board with a 6-4, 7-5, No. 2 singles victory over Jason Hazley. However, LSU sealed the win as 28th-ranked Ken Skupski topped USC’s Marcus Westman, 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
South Carolina now heads to the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Tenn., on April 22-25. In an unofficial look at the standings, USC (No. 10 seed) will face the host Vanderbilt Commodores (No. 7 seed) on Thursday, April 22. Exact time of the match will be released on Monday. Carolina lost at Vanderbilt 6-1 earlier this year and is preparing to avenge that loss. The last time Carolina faced a team in the SEC Tournament that they lost to during the regular season was in 2002. USC fell to Arkansas 4-3 during the regular season then, facing the Razorbacks in the first round of the tournament (held in Knoxville, Tenn.) notched a decisive 4-2 victory.
