TEANECK, N.J. – In a battle between the top two teams in the Northeast Conference Men's Tennis Preseason Coaches Poll, preseason favorite Fairleigh Dickinson will travel to East Hartford, Conn. to take on Bryant on Friday, Feb. 15, at 2:30 p.m.
 
FDU, the reigning NEC Champion, will be seeing its first action since the ITA Regional Championships in mid-October. Because a fall match against Hofstra was twice rained out, Friday will mark the first dual match of the 2012-13 season for the Knights.
 
Bryant (2-3), picked second in the NEC Preseason Coaches Poll, is coming off a 12-7 campaign in 2011-12, which included a 3-1 mark in NEC play. The Bulldogs' only NEC loss was to the Knights by a score of 5-2 at the FDU Tennis Center on April 7.
 
Bryant defeated Hartford, 7-0, in the team's lone fall match this season.  In the spring, the Bulldogs opened on Jan. 26 with a 6-1 loss to Buffalo, then defeated Colgate on the road, 4-3, the following day. So far in February, the Bulldogs have suffered 7-0 defeats at the hands of Boston College and Binghamton.
 
In tournament play during the fall, last season's NEC Rookie and Player of the Year Arvis Berzins (Adazi, Latvia/Riga Language School) led the Knights with five singles victories. In doubles action, the senior duo of Peter Skvarka (Banska Bystrica, Slovakia/Gymnazium J.G. Tajovskeho) and Yuri Gricheno (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Colegio Amorim) teamed up for five doubles wins highlighted by trips to the finals at the USTA Regional Championships and the Columbia Classic
 
Max Vogt has been the Bulldogs' most successful singles player this season with a team-best eight singles wins. Bryant also boasts an accomplished doubles team in Ernesto Arguello  and Juan Gonzalez-Paz, who were First Team All-NEC for No. 1 doubles last season.
 
The Knights will face another tough test the following match when they travel to Princeton, N.J. for a Saturday showdown with the Princeton Tigers on Feb. 23 at 2 p.m.