The Tusculum College men's tennis team clinched the South Atlantic Conference championship with a 6-3 victory over Lincoln Memorial University Friday afternoon at the Nichols Tennis Complex.

The Pioneers (14-4, 8-1 SAC) won their 11th consecutive match and secured the fourth conference title in program history by rallying from a 2-1 deficit against the Railsplitters (10-5, 6-2 SAC). Tusculum previously won SAC championships in 2002, 2005 and 2008.

Sophomore Paul Wiederspahn earned the clinching point with a 6-2, 6-2 victory at flight four singles against Alexey Minevskiy. In all, Tusculum won five of the six singles matches against the Railsplitters, including four straight-set wins.

The Railsplitters earned the first point of the match in doubles play as Will Sparks and Marcelo Alvim defeated Nicolas Planchard and John Taylor 8-4 at flight two. The Pioneers evened the score moments later as Lukas Winkelmann and Jonas Winkelmann teamed for an 8-4 win over Philipp Hoffman and Minevskiy at flight one.

Lincoln Memorial seemed to gain momentum coming out of doubles as Gabriel Martins and Michael Koenen outlasted Wiederspahn and Joseph Elphingstone 9-8 at flight three, winning the tiebreaker 10-8. In the tiebreaker, Tusculum rallied from a 5-3 deficit to take a 6-5 lead, but both teams squandered match-point opportunities until the Railsplitters finally were able to prevail.

In singles, Planchard cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Sparks at flight two to even the match at 2-2, then Lukas Winkelmann gave the Pioneers the lead for good with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Hoffmann at flight one in a showdown of SAC Player of the Year candidates.

Jonas Winkelmann put the Pioneers on the brink of victory with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Alvim at flight three, then Wiederspahn closed out the win at flight four to touch off a celebration among his Tusculum teammates. In the remaining matches, Martins defeated Taylor 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) at flight five and the Pioneers' Daniel Gianopulos held off Guilherme Rocha 10-4 in a tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets 6-4, 2-6.

Tusculum will be the number-two seed in next week's Food Lion South Atlantic Conference Tournament at the Rock Hill Tennis Center, with co-champion Anderson earning the top seed via tiebreaker. The Pioneers will receive a bye into the semifinal round on Friday, with the semifinal winners meeting for the championship on Saturday.

The Pioneers will close out their regular season Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. against King in a non-conference match at the Nichols Tennis Complex.