CHATTANOOGA — Continuing its historic 2023 campaign, Chattanooga Mocs men's tennis sophomore Gabriel Castillo has been named the Southern Conference Player of the Month for all play in March, the league office announced Friday afternoon, ahead of the team's big weekend at Samford on Saturday.
 
Following the monthly award, Castillo becomes the first player in program history to win the award twice after earning honors earlier this season for play in January.
 
"This young man has worked tremendously hard and compete from the very first point," said head coach Chuck Merzbacher about Castillo.
 
"He is locked in on helping this team anyway he can. We are all super proud of him as he leads on and off the court."
 
Castillo went a combined 7-1 between singles and doubles action in March to help the team to a 6-1 overall record and a 3-0 mark in SoCon play. He went a perfect 5-0 in singles at No. 3 and went 1-1 at No. 2 while winning six of his seven singles matches in straight sets.
 
Chattanooga (15-4, 5-0 SoCon) heads into an important match on Saturday at Samford (9-9, 4-1 SoCon) in which the team can clinch at least a share of the SoCon regular season title with a victory. The title would mark the first in program history while the 5-0 start to SoCon play is the best mark since 1989.
 
First serve in Birmingham is set for 2 p.m. ET. Due to impending weather, the match will be subject to relocation to indoor courts at Samford.
 
UTC is 19-23 all-time against Samford in the series history with the Bulldogs claiming wins in each of the past two seasons. Samford has defeated Chattanooga in 11 of the past 12 overall meetings.
 
The match can be streamed LIVE through Track Tennis with links available HERE and also on the schedule page at GoMocs.com. Full match results and scores will be available after conclusion of play on Saturday.

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