RICHARDSON, TX (05.04.18) - The UT Dallas men's tennis team will make a third straight trip to the title match of the American Southwest Conference Tournament on Saturday after earning a 5-0 win over East Texas Baptist in the semifinals Friday night at the UTD Tennis Courts.

The Comets (11-1) will square off with rival Texas-Tyler (19-4) for the third consecutive spring in the league's championship duel at 11 a.m. Saturday. UTD also matched up the Patriots in the finals of 2013 tournament, eventually winning the program's lone conference crown.

UTD stormed through doubles play against the Tigers, picking up three victories to set the stage for the quick semifinal win. No. 3 duo of Albert Hernandez and Ryan Morton set the tone with a swift 8-0 win over ETBU's Andrew Deutsch/Tyler Howard, for the first decision of the mach.

Mario Jelev and Giovanni Zamboni gave the Comets a 2-0 lead with an 8-5 win at No. 2 doubles over Joseph Salina/Ty Tarver, before the tandem of Eric Chen and Ashwin Vaithianathan outlasted John Herr/Cody Highsmith, 9-8 (7-4) at No. 1 to complete the doubles sweep.

Jelev would then open singles play with a 6-2, 6-1, win over Highsmith at No. 1 before Zamboni clinched the contest with a 6-3, 6-0, win at No. 3 over Herr.

At the conclusion of the duel, Hernandez (No. 2, 6-3, 4-3), Vaithianathan (No. 4, 6-0, 2-3), Chen (No. 5 (6-1, 4-2) and Morton (No. 6, 5-2) were each leading their respective matches.

In other semifinal action, Texas-Tyler downed Hardin-Simmons, 5-0.