Alva Review-Courier -

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern men's tennis will enter the spring portion of its schedule ranked No. 17 in the nation and led by Netanel Alcabas who is ranked No. 17 in the Central Region individually.

The Savage Storm wrapped a solid individual spring on the heels of its first NCAA Postseason run which ended in the NCAA Final 16 last season and earned them a No. 17 final ranking in the 2016 season.

SE is ranked second in the Central region as a team behind Northwest Missouri State which checks in at No. 12 nationally.

The Storm sits well ahead of a trio of Great American Conference schools in Ouachita Baptist, Harding and Oklahoma Baptist who are sixth-through-eighth, respectively.

Southeastern returns a group of four players from last year's NCAA qualifying team, led by Alcabas who is joined by Jack Gibbens, Alberto Blesa and Petar Popovic, all of whom played in the team's final match against Midwestern State in Denver, Colo.

In the fall's ITA Regional play, Popovic cruised to a 6-3, 6-1 win in the opening round over Brett White of Washburn, and followed it up with a 6-1, 7-6 upset of 16th seeded Zach Adkins of Augustana to reach the round of 16.

His run would end there, however, on a 6-2, 6-3 loss to top seeded Sherif Abohabaga from Southwest Baptist.

The Savage Storm sent a pair of singles players into the 64 player bracket in seeded positions, with Netanel Alcabas going in as the No. 9 seed and Alberto Blesa entering as the No. 15 seed.

Blesa would survive his first round matchup with Matheus Mota of Emporia State with a 7-5, 6-1 victory, but saw his singles run end with a 6-3, 6-3 loss to Northwest Missouri State's Youssef Sherif in the round of 32.

Alcabas opened his tournament with a 6-4, 6-3 loss to Arron Reekie from Nebraska Kearney, and would withdraw due to illness in the consolation bracket.

Popovic and Blesa were SE's lone doubles representative and opened the A doubles bracket with an 8-4 win over Rodriguez and Warner from UNK. They would unfortunately see their run end prematurely as they suffered an 8-1 loss to Serrano and Tete from NWMSU.

Southeastern will open the spring with a Feb. 18 neutral site contest with Texas-Permian Basin in Plano, Texas, at 2 p.m., and will open the home portion of its schedule against Washburn on Feb. 24 at 1 p.m. at the Southeastern Tennis Complex.