OKLAHOMA CITY – No. 9 Hawai'i Pacific University bounced back to beat No. 3 West Florida 4-3 in the third place match of the inaugural ITA Division II National Indoor Team Championships on Sunday at the Oklahoma City Tennis Center.
 
The Sharks (7-4) jumped out to a 3-0 lead against the Argonauts (7-3), then had to fight through the finish.
 
HPU got the winning point at No. 5 singles when Matej Panik came back to beat 30th ranked Juan Cabrera 1-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 for third place honors. Cabrera was the only nationally ranked player in the match to fall.
 
HPU grabbed the early lead with the doubles point as Benjamin Loccisano and Marcel Hornung wont at No. 2 over Nicholas Lecoutre/Gabriel Nery 6-4, then Panik and Ondrej Ctverak were victorious at No. 1 against Adam Svensson/Serdar Bojadiev 6-4 for the point. Ryohei Arai and Cheng-Chieh Wang were trailing the Argos Salvador Banderia/Juan Motta 5-4 when the Sharks clinched the point.
 
The Sharks pulled out to a 3-0 advantage when 44th ranked Loccisano took the No. 1 singles point with a 6-2, 6-2 win against Motta, and Ctverak beat Lecoutre 6-2, 6-4.
 
UWF bounced back with 11th ranked Bojadiev playing at No. 3 to beat Hornung 6-1, 7-5, and then Bandeira defeated Arai 6-3, 6-4.
 
The last two positions played into three sets, and deep. At No. 6, the Argos Pedro Cordeiro beat Wang 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 that tied the match at 3-3.
 
Then Panik overcame a poor first set and battled to win the second set tiebreaker and grabbed a lead that he had to hold on to at the end in the 1-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 triumph at No. 5.
 
The Sharks stay on the mainland and head to Orlando for three matches at the USTA National Tennis Campus. HPU first meets No. 5 Saint Leo on Wednesday.